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Wilderness Cruising MaY/JUNE 2016

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 Page 33 58 COMPAERA
A wilderness cruiser
Jill Fredston

66 Two Gambles
The birth and survival of the
Atlantic class
John Rousmaniere

74 The Herreshoff Mast Hoop

A lesson in humility
FEATURES Wade Smith
24 To Build a Gandelow 80 DIAMOND
Resurrecting a working rowboat from A modern interpretation of an 1897
Irelands Shannon River Estuary, Part 2 design by Charles Sibbick
Patrick Beautement Nigel Sharp
33 Building SILVER THREAD
A traditional Cornish lug-and-mizzen Page 84
Simon Watts

40 SAGAs Enduring Legacy

The 6-Meter that launched the
International One-Design class
Neil Rabinowitz

50 Electric Auxiliary for a Sailboat

With solar recharge, off-the-grid
cruising is in range
Jonathan Taggart

Page 50
84 When Caulking Comes Before
Planking
Vacuum-bagging pre-made sections
of decking makes for a clean job
Brion Rieff

92 The Two-pointers of Dead Creek

A traditional trapping skiff
from Vermont
Douglas Brooks

2 WoodenBoat 250

TOC250-EdFInal-Rev1.indd 2 3/24/16 1:56 PM

 Number 250
May/June 2016

Reader Services
20 How to Reach Us
Page 116 120 Vintage Boats

121 Boatbrokers
Departments 124 Boatbuilders
4 Editors Page 129 Kits and Plans
A Fine COMPAERA
133 Raftings
6 Letters
135 Classified
14 Currents edited by Tom Jackson
143 Index to Advertisers
38 Wood Technology
Compression Failure
Richard Jagels TEAR-out supplement Pages 16/17

98 Launchingsand Relaunchings Getting Started in Boats:

Robin Jettinghoff Bailers and Pumps
Jan Adkins
102 The WoodenBoat Review
Dragon Harald Fairhair Cover: COMPAERA lies
at anchor in northern
Matthew P. Murphy Labrador. Jill Fredston
Kayaks of Alaska and Doug Fesler have
cruised this ketch-rigged
John Summers motorsailer to some of
Books Received the most remote places
between Alaska
and Atlantic Canada.
110 Designs: Review
Page 58
REMBRANDT: Utility meets luxury
Robert W. Stephens Photograph by Jill Fredston

116 Designs: Sketchbook

MANTA: A sit-on-top kayak
WoodenBoat (ISSN 0095067X) is published bimonthly in January, March, May, July, September,
Laurie McGowan and November in Brooklin, Maine, by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc., Jonathan A. Wilson,
Chairman. Subscription offices are at P.O. Box 16958, North Hollywood, CA 916156958;
18008775284 for U.S. and Canada. Overseas: 18184872084.
144 Save a Classic Subscription rate is $32.00 for one year (6 issues) in the U.S. and its possessions. Canadian
subscription rate is $37.00, U.S. funds. Surface rate overseas is $45.00, U.S. funds per year.
HEL-PORT II : A Fellows & Stewart Periodical postage paid at Brooklin, ME 04616 and additional mailing offices. In Canada,
periodical postage paid at Toronto, Ontario (Canadian periodical Agreement No. 40612608,
Sportfisherman Cruiser GST Registration No. R127081008).
U.S. Postmaster: Please send Change of Address (form 3579) to P.O. Box 16958, North
Maynard Bray Hollywood, CA 916156958
Canada Postmaster: Imex Global Solutions, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON, N6C 6B2, Canada.

May/June 2016 3

TOC250-EdFInal-Rev2.indd 3 3/25/16 2:24 PM

 A Fine COMPAERA 41 WoodenBoat Lane P.O. Box 78
Brooklin, ME 046160078
tel. 2073594651 fax 2073598920
Our coverage of COMPAERA, the sturdy motorsailer depicted on email: woodenboat@woodenboat.com
the cover of this issue, began from a distance at the Port Townsend website: www.woodenboat.com
(Washington) Wooden Boat Festival last September. I was sharing
Chairman & Editor-in-Chief
a meal with Bruce Halabisky and Tiffany Loney, recently returned Jonathan A. Wilson
circumnavigators (see WB No. 246), at Sirens, a pub-style restaurant Publisher & General Manager
with an incomparable view of Port Townsend Bay. Among the Jim Miller
Associate Publisher
numerous moored boats and vessels glowing in the twilight that Andrew Breece
evening was a distinctive-looking dragger-style yacht. Bruce and EditorIAL
Editor Matthew P. Murphy
Tiffany had visited aboard her earlier in the day and met the owners, Senior Editor Tom Jackson
Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler. Assistant Editor Robin Jettinghoff
Technical Editor Maynard Bray
Jill and Doug had an amazing story and a beautifully adapted Boat Design Editor Mike OBrien
Contributing Editors Harry Bryan, Greg Rssel
boat, Bruce and Tiffany told me. Thats high praise from a couple Copy Editor Jane Crosen
who spent 11 years circling the globemuch of that time with two Art & PRODUCTION
daughters born along the way. Jill and Doug, they said, had acquired Art Director James Bartick
Advertising Art Designer Michelle Gawe
their boat, COMPAERA, in order to indulge their penchant for Circulation
wilderness rowinga passion that had carried them, over the course Director Richard Wasowicz
Associates Lorna Grant, Pat Hutchinson
of nearly 20 summers, 25,000 miles through remote northern places. Advertising
In her article beginning on page 58, Jill writes that in a larger Director Todd Richardson
Manager Laura Sherman
cruising boat they sought passage through scary or boring stretches Sales Administrator Whitney Thurston
of coast by big boat but also the freedom to explore the interesting Classified Pat Hutchinson
Sales Associates
intricacies by oar. E ast Coast & M idwest:
Jill and Doug and I never met at the festival. They were anchored Ray Clark, 4012474922; rgclark@cox.net
New England: John K. Hanson, Jr.,
out for the weekend and I was absorbed with the show. But I made a 2075948622; john@maineboats.com
note after my conversation with Bruce and Tiffany: Get in touch with Southeast and West Coast:
Todd Richardson, 2073594651;
owners of dragger-style yacht. Wilderness rowers. Later, Ethan Cook, todd@woodenboat.com
an old friend from Maine now transplanted to the Pacific Northwest, Canada:
Gord Laco, 7055279612;
seconded the motion. A friend of Jill and Dougs, he put us in touch gord@woodenboat.com
after the show. I asked Jill if shed be interested in telling their UK and Europe:
Edward Mannering, +44 (0) 7732 910 727
storywhich I knew only peripherally at that point. Her response, edward@woodenboat.com
describing their trip, was nothing short of breathtaking: It included Research
Director Patricia J. Lown
Alaska, Mexico, Patagonia, The Falkland Islands, Brazil, Mystic, and Associates Rosemary Poole, Queene Hooper Foster
Labradorand many interesting intricacies in between. Fascinated Business
Office Manager Tina Stephens
with this ambitious cruise track, we editors did not hesitate in our Associate Roxanne Sherman
pursuit of the story. Reception Heidi Gommo, Elaine Hutchinson
THE WOODENBOAT STORE
So as to not risk spoiling the narrative, Ill limit the introduction www.woodenboatstore.com
to that and leave it to Jill, in her incomparable style, to tell the full 1800273SHIP (7447); fax 2073592058
Catalog Manager Ann Neuhauser
tale of her amazing six-year journey with Doug in COMPAERA. Associates Jody Allen, Chet Staples
WOODENBOAT BOOKS
www.woodenboatbooks.com
Book Publisher Scot Bell
WoodenBoat School
Speaking of journeys: WoodenBoat is on one of its own, and the Director Rich Hilsinger
magazine you hold in your hands marks a noteworthy waypoint: Business Manager Kim Patten

This is our 250th issue. website

Manager Greg Summers

Copyright 2016 by WoodenBoat Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reprinted without written permission from the publisher.
Contributions: Address all editorial communica
tions to Editor, WoodenBoat, P.O. Box 78, Brooklin,
ME 046160078. WoodenBoat is a largely reader-written
magazine. Care is taken with unsolicited contributions,
but we are not responsible for damage or loss.
Printed in U.S.A.

4 WoodenBoat 250

EdPage250-02.indd 4 3/23/16 1:04 PM

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 Gerhard Rnnes RUNA s
Dear WoodenBoat,
This is an interesting complement to the Gerhard
Rnne story in WoodenBoat No. 248. When searching
for a photo album on my bookshelf, I accidentally
found an old yearbook from Svenska Kryssarklubben
(the Swedish Cruising Club) from 1925, which I inher-
ited from my father. With curiosity I began looking
through the book and found a long article (32 pages)
that was in fact a logbook from a long cruise made by
Gerhard Rnne from Denmark via Sweden into the
Norwegian fjord archipelago as far as the famous Sog-
nefjord, and then back again to Denmark. The boat he
sailed was RUNA V. According to the text, RUNA V was a
bigger boat than what is described under the sketch in
the WoodenBoat article; she is more like RUNA II.
This is the description of RUNA V in Gerhard Rnnes
own words, translated from Danish:
RUNA V is a 5-ton cruiser, 9.95m LOA, 2.32m beam,
1.45m draft, and sail area, without the topsail, 55.6m. She
was built 1920 by Nielsen Brothers in Skogshoved after my
design.
My idea is to have a seaworthy, solid, and spacious boat
well suited for long sailing tours. The self-bailing cockpit is
quite small and so is the cabin. This allows the 2.6m dinghy In a Swedish Cruising Club yearbook of 1925, reader Bjrn
to be stowed upside down on deck. The cockpit has a small Magnusson found yacht designer Gerhard Rnnes account of a
bridge deck where the compass is placed. The stove is on the voyage in RUNA V.
port side near the door so that you can move it outside in fair
weather.
Inside there are two settees separated from the stove aft with noted comparison refers to, but we assume it is RAN II, sister to
a bulkhead. In the forward bulkhead there is a door to the WC RUNA, both 31'9" (9.73m) LOA. (The designer felt that RAN II
and forward locker. The three lower sails have enough area in occupied the second design position, so named the second yacht
most cases, but when sailing long distances in moderate winds built for himself RUNA III; there was no RUNA II.)
the topsail is very useful. Considering the Norwegian fjords, TJ
we have acquired a 2 12 -hp outboard motor. However, we did
not have enough time before our departure to learn how to use PIPE DREAM
such a capricious object, so therefore we did not use it very Good Morning Matt,
much. On the other hand, we had good use of a pair of 12' Congratulations to WoodenBoat and Rob Mazza. His
oars. Considering the long cruising, the boat was adequately story of PIPE DREAM and Metro Marine was of great
equipped. interest for Canadian readers. In 2007, I spent a lot
RUNAs cruising began June 16, 1920, from Skog- of time researching and privately published a small
shoved, Denmark, and ended in Copenhagen July 27, 20-page booklet on the history of Northern Shipbuilding &
1920. The total distance was 1,326 nautical miles (20 Repair Company Limited (NSB&M) of Bronte, Ontario.
with the small outboard motor, which was not very pow- NSB&M was the former occupant (circa 19461954)
erful for a boat with a displacement of 5 tons). of the building that Rob writes about as being Metro
Bjrn Magnusson Marine. The booklet is on file with the Bronte/Oakville
Boge, Gotland, Sweden Historical Society.
Joe Fossey, Sr.
In WoodenBoats longstanding usage, LOA refers to hull Barrie, Ontario
length overall. RUNA V s LOA was 27'9" (8.45m). Her
sparred length, from the end of the boom aft to the tip of Beautiful Book Design
the bowsprit forward, was 32'8" (9.95m), which matches the Dear Editor,
quoted 1925 description. The draft and beam also match. I enjoyed John Summerss review of L. Francis Herreshoff,
Jacques Taglangs book recorded sail areas from Lloyds Yacht Yacht Designer (WB No. 249), published by Mystic Sea-
Registry (61.1 square meters) and the magazine Sejlsport port. Along with his interesting review of the subject, I
(55.6 square meters, matching Rnnes account). The differ- liked seeing the photo reproductions of the books page
ence, 4.5 square meters (48 sq ft) is accounted for by the top- layouts that accompanied the article. It often seems that
sail, which Rnne specifically omits in his report. the craft and art of boat design and the craft and art
Its hard for us to know which boat Mr. Magnussons of book design share quite a few attributes, with both

6 WoodenBoat 250

Letters250-EdFinal.indd 6 3/23/16 3:44 PM

StudioMilano-250.indd 7 3/22/16 7:53 PM
 endeavors resulting in objects that range from the ser-
viceable and workaday to the artful and gorgeous to
the memorable folly. Mr. Summers shows a real appre-
ciation of the book itselfits design and its production
valuesand how it reflects the artistry of L. Francis
Herreshoff.
I also like that Mr. Summers notes the care that
Mystic Seaport took with overseeing the publication.
Well-designed boats deserve well-crafted publications.
However, real credit should go to the books designer,
whose name was ironically missing. It takes a team
effort to make a successful yacht or a successful book.
But as with yachts, it is the designer who creates the look
and feel we long admire. The books designer deserves
to be mentioned.
Thanks again to WoodenBoat and Mr. Summers for
the review.
Mason Singer
Montpelier, Vermont
As Mr. Singer notes, it takes a team effort to create a work as
beautiful as L. Francis Herreshoff: Yacht Designer, and
author Roger Taylor acknowledges a number of people at the
beginning of the book. Trish Sinsigalli Lapointe was respon-
sible for the books design.
Eds.
Ray Hunts Shoalers?
To whom it may concern:
After reading the review of A Genius at His Trade in WB
No. 248, I purchased the book and am finding it very
interesting. I had thought I knew a lot about Ray Hunt
but was sadly mistaken.
The most interesting design, to me, is the Shoaler
series. There is some sparse information in the book
and on the Internet, but just enough to further spark
my interest. Is it possible that there is more detailed
and descriptive information somewhere? If there is, Id
appreciate your letting me know about it. Would you
know if there are any surviving boats? Any information
would be welcome.
Thanking you in advance.
Neil Barney
via email
The historical archives of C. Raymond Hunt reside in the Ships
Plans Collection at Mystic Seaport (www.mysticseaport.org).
Our cursory inspection of their online list shows that the
collection includes drawings from the Shoaler series.
Eds.
Another Solution
Dear WoodenBoat,
Dr. Richard Jagelss Wood Technology column (WB
No. 248) on compressive set was highly informative and
well-written. The section on solutions, however, omitted
a simple and perhaps the most effective method to swell
a large plank-on-frame boat before caulking or launch-
ing. Use of drip hoses and sprinklers to apply water to
8 WoodenBoat 250
Letters250-EdFinal.indd 8
the outside of a hull may help maintain moisture con-
tent but will not swell dry planks effectively. Its easier
and more efficient to tent in the hull and use a porta-
ble industrial ultrasonic humidifier to swell the planks.
Over the past 14 years we conducted a very exten-
sive restoration of our 43' Alden schooner BLACKBIRD
(design No. 309Q). We have used this method to swell
the boat and help maintain moisture content of the
planks for about eight years. With the exception of new
angelique garboards, BLACKBIRD retains virtually all
her original 85-year-old longleaf pine carvel planking.
Based on plank-gap measurements, we estimate that
old-growth longleaf shrinkage ranges from 3 to 6 per-
cent. Several years before relaunching, when the plank-
ing was at its driest, we reefed out the underwater seams.
Before caulking in 2015, several planks had shown
a tendency to shrink back to the point where a pen-
cil could be passed between them. This did not cause
us concern, since we knew we could easily swell even
those planks tight before caulking. To do so, we tented-
in BLACKBIRDs bottom from above the waterline with
shrink-wrap, with the bottom edge of the plastic held
down with gravel ballast. Perforated drainage pipe was
laid under the hull, one run per side, and attached to
the humidifier, which was located on the outside of the
tent. Access under the boat is maintained through zip-
per doors. A garden hose provides water to the humidi-
fier, which converts about 30 gallons of water per day
(1,750 lbs/week) into cold mist.
Since migration of water moisture back into the
planks is limited by capillary forces and diffusion, the
swelling requires time; in our case about four to six
weeks (7,000 to 10,000 lbs of mist exposure). Within
about 15 minutes of starting the operation, the area
encapsulated by the tent is at 100 percent humidity
Maine fog, so to speak. The surfaces of the planks will
remain fairly dry for two to three weeks as water migrates
back into the planks. The surfaces of the planks will
start becoming wet as moisture content increases, after
which the planks will begin to swell noticeably and the
planking seams close. After four to six weeks, the hull
is ready to be caulked with cotton. Even the seams that
a pencil could be passed through closed tight. Moisture
content is then easily maintained by turning the system
on when needed until the seams can all be caulked and
finished with seam compound.
Caulking an old boat is a challenge for many rea-
sons, but dry planks do not need to be one of them.
When caulking BLACKBIRD, we used only a fine caulk-
ing iron to roll the cotton into the seams, tighten it, and
set it, rather than using larger irons. But that would be
another discussion all in itself.
We hope this information is helpful to other owners.
If a boat is dry, there is no need to panic, and certainly
no need to cause damage by overcaulking.
The Thompsons
Schooner BLACKBIRD
Freeport, Maine
3/23/16 3:44 PM
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 DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS
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:07:07 PM WB250Ad.indd 7 3/16/16 4:07:36 PM
 CURRENTS
COURTESY OF POLYNESIAN VOYAGING SOCIETY
Some old advice,
brought up to date
by Tom Jackson
To young men contemplating a voyage
I would say go.
T his sentence, Joshua Slocums advice from the appendix to
Sailing Alone Around the World of 1900, needs editing these
days. Foremost, it should be directed equally at young women,
not just young men. Come to think of it, young needs work:
Modern oceanic voyagers are both much younger and much
older than the good captain could ever have imagined. Soli-
tude still works, but of course on social media you can be
alone with everyone. The old merchant mariner might have
been amazed, too, that these days teams of people go to sea as
volunteers, each person making a better person of the others
and the boat making better people of them all.
These changes in seafaring would come as no surprise to
the crew of two long oceanic voyages that are converging on
the U.S. eastern seaboard this year from opposite ends of the
Earth. One is a double-hulled voyaging canoe from Hawaii,
the other is from Norway, the largest-yet representation of
a ship from the Viking age. Both celebrate ancient cultures
famous for their total dependence on boats, long voyaging,
and large crews sharing confined space.
Look to the Pacific to ponder any concept of voyaging.
Untold generations of seafarers populated islands by cross-
ing thousands of miles of open ocean in simple but elegant
boats that came as a shock to early European explorers. In
the 1970s, scholar-sailors set out to reconstruct canoes and
restore cultural pride by demonstrating how Pacific popu-
lations migratedand especially how they navigated. One
of the first of these was HOKULEA , which as of this writing
14 WoodenBoat 250
Currents250-AdFInal.indd 14
HOKULEA , a reconstruction of a Pacific voyaging canoe, was
built in Hawaii in 1975 and is currently on a world tour. She is
expected to be at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut in time for
The WoodenBoat Show, June 2426.
was nearing Cuba midway through a world tour (see www.
hokulea.com). Her visit to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut is
expected to coincide with The WoodenBoat Show, to be held
there June 2426. HOKULEA , a 62' LOA double-hulled sail-
ing canoe, was originally built in 1975 of layers of light ply-
wood sheathed in fiberglass and epoxy, enormous koa logs
being unobtainable. She was rebuilt in the mid-1990s. (A
second Polynesian Voyaging Society canoe, HIKIANALIA , a
72' fiberglass-hulled boat with solar-electric auxiliary power,
will sail the U.S. West Coast this year, then to Panama, where
she will rendezvous with HOKULEA for a joint voyage back
to Hawaii.) HOKULEAs purpose was always tied to voyaging
culture more than original construction, and during her first
passage from Hawaii to Tahiti, Mau Piailug served as her nav-
igator, teaching a universally admired art that was very nearly
lost to the world.
Cultural pride is also at the heart of DRAGON HARALD
FAIRHAIRs transatlantic voyage this year from Norway to
numerous destinations in the Great Lakes, then down the
canal and river system to New York City in September and
Mystic Seaport in October. (See www.drakenexpedition
america.com and also Matt Murphys review of a book about
the ship on page 102.) Shell stop along the ancient Viking
track in Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland on the way.
At 114' LOA , she is the largest of many modern ships repre-
senting the Nordic boatbuilding expertise of a thousand
years ago, and there is no question about the authenticity
of her construction. An extraordinary piece of work, shes
hugebigger than any replica the Danes have built so far.
Having sailed one such voyage, in a 98-footer, from Dub-
lin to Denmark (see WB No. 206), I can say with certainty that
3/21/16 11:00 AM
 Edited by Tom Jackson

the shared intensity of these voyages will forge lasting friend-

The 1932
ships for the men and women aboard. Such camaraderie is
powerful, formed even during a few fleeting weeks out of a schooner
long and varied lifetime. BARLOVENTO
Another kind of voyager, however, hews closer to Slocums is currently
style, going it alone, often in smaller and smaller boats with undergoing an
greater and greater ambitions. This year, for example, adven- extensive refit
turer Howard Rice will sail a 12' John Welsforddesigned at Jespersen
Scamp extensively in the islands of Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Boatbuilders
where almost 30 years earlier he doubled Cape Horn in a 15'

COURTESY OF JESPERSEN BOATBUILDERS

in North
folding canoe. (Updates on the preparations can be found at
Saanich, British
www.forum.woodenboat.com; a film is planned.) Of course,
Columbia.
kayak voyaging can lead to other things, as shown in the
article on COMPAERA , starting on page 58. And to counter
Slocums reference to young men contemplating a voyage,
I offer the example of retired scientist Dr. Deb Walters, who
in February 2016 completed a 2,500-mile voyage from Troy,
Maine, to Guatemala in a modified 18' plywood kayak from
Chesapeake Light Craft. Like many a modern solo voyager,
she had more than a trip in mindshe raised some $425,000
in aid for children and families living in a garbage dump in
Guatemala City. (She wrote about her experiences in blog
form; see www.kayakforsafepassagekids.blogspot.com.)
The world is more complicated than in Slocums times, (See more from Jespersen in the SAGA article on page 40.) Jes-
and many people simply cant take months or years to indulge persen Boatbuilders, No. 39, 2300 Canoe Cove Rd., North Saanich,
a voyaging habit. If we have families and work we love, we take BC, V8L 3X9, Canada; 2506562581; www.jespersenboats.com.
shorter voyages. If money is limited, we make smaller boats. If
opportunity arises, we volunteer for a few weeks. Slocum set n A new yacht built to a 1954 design by Sparkman & Ste-
the pattern from the first, for all successorsto do it as best phens is under construction in Enkhuizen, Holland. We
you can, then tell the tale, and tell it well. It was said of one received the order to build a 56' yawl to the design of IMPALA ,
writerI cant recall which: E.B. White? James Thurber? originally commissioned by James Farrell and built at Abek-
that in the right hands the story of a row across a Central Park ing & Rasmussen in Germany, Hans-Peter Baars writes from
pond could compare with any voyaging epic. True, even if the the Ventis Shipyard. IMPALA comes from the line of amaz-
tale is merely told over dinner. ingly pretty, fast, and seaworthy yawls by Olin Stephens. The
Something deep in human instinct sees a river, bay, or original IMPALA is still going strong and cruises the coasts
ocean, and feels the need to cross it. The instinct is as ancient of Europe; however, a friend of the owner was so enchanted
as all of us, as new as a fresh breeze. One word of Slocums with the yacht that he discussed building a sistership. The
sentence needs no editing: Go. plans were ordered from S&S, and Ventis was selected as the
builder. The hull will be cold-molded using quarter-sawn
Tom Jackson is WoodenBoats senior editor. Alaska yellow cedar but otherwise matching the original
specifications, with a 2017 launching anticipated. It is smiles
all over at the yard, something that comes naturally with
Around the yards
n BARLOVENTO, a 1932 Maine-built schooner, is
undergoing an extensive refit at Jespersen Boatbuild-
ers in Sidney, British Columbia. The project to
replace a number of deckbeams and redecking has
grown, in the inevitable manner, proprietor Eric Jes-
persen writes, to include replacement of sheer planks,
transom, all deckbeams, the top 3' of the stem, and
COURTESY OF VENTIS SHIPYARD

of course the deck. Beams are laminated Douglas-fir,

and decking will be two layers of 12mm plywood, with
a laid deck over the top, using either teak or a suitable
substitute. The schooner, 64' 5" LOA , was designed
by Cox & Stevens and built for Pierre duPont at the
F.F. Pendleton yard in Wiscasset, Maine. Her new
owners, who hail from Germany, intend significant
world cruising, Jespersen reported. The work so far
has been done while the schooner remains afloat in
A modern cold-molded rendition of IMPALA, a 1954 yawl
a covered boathouse. Spring will see BARLOVENTO
hauled out, Jespersen said, with our focus shifting to designed by Olin Stephens, is under construction at Ventis
planking repair and repainting the topsides and bot- Shipyard in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands.
tom. The rig will get some attention at the same time.

May/June 2016 15

Currents250-AdFInal.indd 15 3/21/16 11:00 AM

 SEPTEMBER 9-11, 2016
the excitement and opportunity to build a thing of true
beauty, Baars wrote. Wooden masts and spars will be built
by Brasker Masten in Enkuizen. Ventis Shipyard BV, Vlak-
water 7, 1601 EV Enkhuizen, The Netherlands; +31 (0) 228312
542; www.ventis.nl. Brasker Masten, www.braskermasten.nl.

n There was disbelief when the crumbling remains of

the 1910 wooden barge GEORGE arrived at Baltic Wharf
in Totnes in June 2015, Nic Compton writes from Eng-
land. Local boatbuilder Bobby Cann had been tasked
with the job of restoring her to her former glory, but few
believed she would ever float again. Six months and sev-
eral lorry-loads of timber later, the futtocks were being cut
for the last few frames, and the first 2"-thick oak planks
were being hung. The great piles of timber surrounding
the yard were gradually being whittled away, as a magnifi-
cent bluff-bowed barge reemerged from the clouds of saw-
dust.
GEORGE is the last surviving transom-sterned short

40th annual boat from the Leeds & Liverpool Canal in northern
England. Built in 1910 for the Wigan Coal and Iron Co.,
she carried coal, iron ore, and stone on the canal until the

Port Townsend 1970s. Her method of propulsion was 1-hpliterally, one

horse, which towed her by means of a long rope. At one time,
around 64 such barges were in operation, of which only

wooden
four survive today: three double-ended versions and
GEORGE . After being decommissioned in 1972, GEORGE
was acquired by the Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port and

boat
underwent extensive restoration in 198485. The museum
was unable to keep up with her maintenance, however, and
in 2013 a Heritage Lottery fund of 147,300 (about
$210,000) was awarded for the restoration of two boats:

festival
GEORGE and MOSSDALE , an 1860 Mersey flat (i.e.,
wooden barge) also owned by the museum (by now
renamed the National Waterways Museum).
Cue Bobby Cann. Bobby has been based in South
Devon since the 1970s, when he pulled into Brixham for a
few repairs to his own fishing boat and, in his own words,
never left. He built several wooden fishing boats in Brix-

1977-2016

NIC COMPTON

Boatbuilders in Totnes, England, have been rebuilding

GEORGE, the last canal barge of her type. Built in 1910,
she was used for hauling coal, iron ore, and stone on
the Leeds & Liverpool Canal into the 1970s.

16 WoodenBoat 250

Currents250-AdFInal.indd 16 3/21/16 11:12 AM

 GETTING STARTED IN BOATS
from the Editors of Magazine
www.thetravellerest.com

Volume 57 Bailers and Pumps

GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-04.indd 1 3/23/16 5:19 PM

 Bailers and Pumps
Text and Illustrations by Jan Adkins

E
verything orderly devolves into chaos.
Thats the principle of entropy.
Mountains tumble, ravines fill up, walls
collapse. And a sailors feet will eventually get
wet. The hull, deck, and coachhouse of your
boatalthough conceived intelligently, built
thoughtfully, and maintained lovinglywill
admit water at some time, be it a drip directly
over your bunk or a torrent into the bilge. Boat-
ers accept this predestination and prepare
cleverly for it: The prudent mariner is ready at
any time to pump ship.
Since the Pharaohs floated upon the Nile and
before, sailors have spoken this truism in
many languages: The best bilge pump is a
scared man and a bucket. A stout bucket,

WOODENBOAT PUBLICATIONS, INC.

P.O. Box 78 (41 WoodenBoat Ln.), Brooklin, ME 04616
Tel. 2073594651 www.WoodenBoat.com
18002737447 (U.S. and Canada)
Subscribe to WoodenBoat Magazine: 18008775284

2 Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250)

GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-04.indd 2 3/23/16 5:19 PM


worked desperately, can shift a mighty
amount of water.
Our best advice features no high tech-
nology: seize a large-volume container and
pitch water outthrough a hatch, into a
self-draining cockpit, or over the side. Know
where that bucket is and how you plan to use
it. Its the cheapest and most efficient water
expeller you can have, and you can use it to
wash dishes and decks, too. Two buckets and
two crew members, sufficiently motivated by
water coming, say, through a collision rift in
the hull, are even better.
An oak or cedar bucket with a rope bail
is a traditional tool aboard wooden boats,
and much-praised by L. Francis Herreshoff.
It floats, it works, its handsome. The palm-
and-needle stitched canvas bucket, with or
GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-04.indd 3
without a wooden base, is even more traditional,
a part of Hervey Garrett Smiths marlinespike
craft. Boaters may not be familiar with the black
rubber horse-stall bucket but can appreciate its
easy price and its refusal to scratch woodwork.
The bailers shown here are traditional for
small boats and modest sailing craft. The exotic
example from the South Pacific is an illustra-
tion of art transforming a working essential to
a beautiful object, perhaps to soften a disagree-
able chore. The leather-and-wood bailer, and its
even simpler carved brother, were familiar tools
in the ships VASA and MARY ROSE five hundred
years ago. Any of the three examples would be
welcome in bailing an open boat today.
Some leaks are catastrophic, some are nui-
sances. Getting started in boats most often in-
volves small, open daysailers where only a few
gallons of water will wet your bottom. Simple
mechanical pumps, probably like those used by
the Pharaohs bargemaster, are appropriate and
even satisfying: Sending rot-inducing rainwater
overboard with a hand pump feels like progress.
WoodenBoat has detailed a few basic wooden
pumps you might make in your shop (WB Nos.
178 and 243). They utilize leather one-way flap
valves at the bottom, and push-rod lifters.
Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250) 3
3/23/16 5:19 PM
 Bailers and Pumps (continued)
Water is lifted up through an opening flap-
valve, then out the spout on the up-stroke, but
the flexing downstroke against the one-way
flap doesnt affect the column of water. Thats
all there is to it, and the same principle applies
to the familiar water pump in young Ameri-
cas kitchens, and to the galvanized steel and
the brass lift pumps used in boats through-
out the past century. The logistics of a
small flume carrying the lifted bilge
water from the lift pump to
the gunwales is plain: pick
up water from the deepest
boat recesses and carry it
overboard.
Even without
a mechanical
pump you can
bail your boat.
Whats wanted
is a flexible lip
Permanently Installed Pump Types
G
etting started in boats may involve
a small cruising vessel sleeping on a
mooring, vulnerable to leaks. Such
4 Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250)
GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-04.indd 4
that will conform to
the curves of your
boat and a capacious
gatherer of water.
Plenty of commercial
bailers are sold, like the
ones on the left, but many
boaters prefer to fall back on
recycling detergent, milk, or
bleach bottles. True, we may refer
to fiberglass boats as Clorox bot-
tles, but we respect the watertight integrity of
a Clorox bottle.
All craft bailers are works in progress.
Youre not spending money or much time on
them, so youre at leisure to experiment. Mark
a likely scoop contour that will leave good
bilgewater volume in the bailer, and cut away
with a utility knife with a new blade. Friction-
tape the top closed. Does it work perfectly? If
not, then try another.
a boat might need to be pumped out each time
you arrive aboard, and a hand-stroked diaphragm
pump might be the tool of choice for this. Pumps
of this type are rugged and move a lot of water,
and they are also standard equipment in blue
water boats: Keeping up with a leak at sea
may well depend upon such a perma-
nently installed diaphragm pump
with a handle convenient to the helm.
This pump is not much more in-
volved than the lift-pumps. It
consists of two one-way valves
and a rubber diaphragm that
expands and compresses to
squeeze a volume of water through
the pump.
When your boat is alone for many days, or
when a seaway promotes working of the hull
and admits a bit more water, accumulation in
the bilge can be addressed by an electric bilge
3/23/16 5:19 PM
 Permanently Installed Pump Types (continued)
pump. This is well-established technology. The
typical arrangement consists of a plastic-bodied
pump with a hard-plastic impeller in its base, an
electric switch, and a discharge hose leading to a
through-hull fitting. The electric switch is acti-
vated when it f loats in rising bilgewater to
GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-04.indd 5
beyond the horizontal position. There are many
contemporary variations on the basic, time-
honored unit shown here. Some of them have
switches built right into the pumps. Others
dispense with the float switch altogether, and
instead sample the situation at specified
intervals; if water resistance is felt, then the
pump will keep on running. The most recent
variation on the switch-and-pump theme
includes a low-profile pump body and
foot (the portion that picks up water)
that can be configured for a variety of
tight situations.
A multipurpose impeller pump can
also be used as a bilge pump. The
advantage of this type of setup is
that the pump itself can be
mounted anywhere, thus keeping
the electric motor out of the harsh
bilgewater. The pump body may be
mounted on a convenient bulkhead,
with a pickup hose equipped with a foot
valve extending from it into the depths of the
bilge. A separate discharge hose leads from
the pump to a through-hull fitting. This style
of pump has a many-armed rubber impeller set
Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250) 5
3/23/16 5:19 PM
 Permanently Installed Pump Types (continued)

into a housing slightly smaller than its un-
confined diameter. Its spin-axis is offset from
the housings center. Each time the impeller
revolves, the inter-arm spaces on one side are
being reduced, and the spaces opposite are
expanding. Water is drawn into the pump by
the expanding spaces, then pushed out by the
compressed spaces. There are alternative
geomet r ies for impellers, but they all
depend upon the longevity of the impeller,
flexing many times per second.
The prudent mariner replaces his impeller
each season, and always keeps a spare one
aboard, along with the tools to replace it.

Bilge Pump Installation

T
he plumbing of pumps is straight- cated at or above the maximum heeled water-
forward, but be wary of fluid dynamics. lineunless theres a seacock installed on the
An improperly plumbed pump can discharge through-hull fitting, and theres a
actually siphon water back into the boat, vented riser loop, as shown here, extending
potentially sinking it.
Pumps are connected to smooth
hoses sized to fit the output and corre-
sponding through-hull fitting. Corru-
gated hoses, though sometimes used,
create a friction that reduces the ef-
ficiency of your pumps. The connec-
tions are force-fit and then secured
by stainless-steel hose clampstwo
of them for each connection. All this
good advice means little if you dont
get into the bilge and inspect those
hoses and their clamps several times
a season.
Were showing a dual-pump con-
figuration (see page 8). The American
Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC; www.
abycinc.org) recommends that the
discharge in a powerboat be above
the waterline when the boat is heeled
7 degrees. In a sailboat, the ABYC rec-
ommends that the discharge be lo-

6 Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250)

GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-EDFinal.indd 6 3/23/16 5:56 PM

 Bilge
A Pair of Benches
Pump for Handsawing
Installation (continued)

well above the water-

line as a guard against
the aforementioned
back-siphoning. The
seacock-and-vented
loop option is best.
For aesthetic reasons,
many people locate
their discharge at or
near the waterline
with corresponding
riser loops to prevent
siphoning. Plumbing
configurations will
vary from boat to boat, due to the constraints marine-grade electrical connectors coated with
of shape, layout, and structure. The ABYC has heat-shrinkable plastic. Run the wire out of likely
a thick book of carefully considered standards bilgewater or splash. Use a non-conducting
for all manner of boat systems. If you are clamp to secure every wire at intervals of, at most,
altering or installing a bilge pump, we highly 18". Connections should be robust, positive, and
recommend a review of these standards before water-resistant. (Again: consult the ABYC stan-
designing your system; theres more to it dards before getting too deep into your design.)
than we can detail in this short article. Do not Were showing a two-pole switch. The manual
neglect to attach a conical wooden emergency pole feeds current into the pump, bypassing
plug to the through-hull fitting; it might save the float switches, so you can turn the pump
the boat in the event of a hose failure. on at any time. The auto pole passes current
Electricity at sea is always suspect. The bilge through the float switches to the pumps, so
environment is not ideal for electronic integ- it will be activated by rising water. Were also
rity. Do what you can to forestall failure by showing a possible circuit for a warning light
using good tinned-copper marine wire, and that could alert you if your pump is running.

Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250) 7

GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-EDFinal.indd 7 3/23/16 5:56 PM

 Dual Bilge Pumps

I
ts difficult to judge the scale of a
leak immediately. A small bilge
pump, set to work by a float switch,
will deal with nuisance water. But if the
water level in your cruising boat rises
above this maintenance pump, you may
be in trouble. Many cruisers address this
eventuality with a larger, higher-volume
pump and a second float switch, and
some install both a warning light and a very timber. The plate, pumps, and switches are
loud alarm to alert the whole harbor if the plumbed in and electrically connected with
boat begins taking water seriously. enough slack to pull and inspect or repair the
Because every pump should be inspected entire system as a unit. The board, when in
several times per season, a two-pump array with use, must be securely fixed in place, and this
its two-stage float switches can be mounted on can be done in a variety of ways: turn-buttons,
a single marine ply wood plate that slips screws, bolts, or even Velcro. The solutions will
into guides on the boats structuresay, a floor vary from boat to boat.

8 Bailers and Pumps (SUPPLEMENT TO WOODENBOAT NO. 250)

GS-Vol57-WB250-Pumping-04.indd 8 3/23/16 5:18 PM

 ham before moving upriver to Totnes in 2000. Since then,
he has undertaken several lottery-funded restorations on
boats such as the St. Ives lugger BARNABAS and the Brixham
trawlers LEADER and PROVIDENT. For the work on GEORGE ,
he took on three young apprentices to work alongside his
existing longstanding team of David Houcke (who has been
with him since 1980) and Andy Savage (since 1986). He told
me the lads were shaping up well.
GEORGE was scheduled to be relaunched in May 2016,
though when I visited her in February it looked as if Bobby
Cann and his boys might overrun that deadline by a few
weeks. enigmatic OBrien, put together a project to repatriate her in
National Waterways Museum, South Pier Rd., Ellesmere Port,
Cheshire, CH65 4FW, England; www.canalrivertrust.org.uk.
Bobby Cann, bobbycann1@gmail.com or +44 (0) 7886710406.
DOUG COLE
Dave Hartford works on topside replanking aboard the
1977 schooner SPIKE AFRICA at Seaview North Shipyard
in Bellingham, Washington.
n At Seaview North Boatyard, the schooner SPIKE
AFRICA , 65' LOD, is undergoing the final phase of a near-
total hull rebuild, Doug Cole writes from Bellingham,
Washington. On previous haulouts over the past seven
winters, the forward part of the keel, the horn timber, and
21 planks below the waterline were replaced, followed by
refastening and recaulking. A new mainmast was also made.
Now, a crew headed by shipwright Al Meyers is well along
in replanking the port topsides, using old-growth Douglas-
fir milled in Forks on the Olympic Peninsula. The project
has involved new purpleheart upper frame futtocks in the
forward half of the hull, new covering boards forward, the
transom framework and planking, new rails and railcaps,
and new topside planking. A new foremast is also being built
this year. Designed and built by Robert Sloan in Costa Mesa,
California, in 1977 based on a design by Murray Peterson,
SPIKE AFRICA in recent years has been in the charter busi-
ness for Schooners North, based in Friday Harbor. Owner
Gary Gero, who is also working full-time on the project, said
the schooner would be ready in time for the 2016 sailing
season. Seaview North Boatyard, 2652 Harbor Loop Dr., Belling-
ham, WA 98225; 3606768282; www.seaviewboatyard.com. See
also Schooners North, 685 Spring St., Friday Harbor, WA 98250;
3603782224; www.sanjuansailcharter.com.
n The Ilen School and Network for Wooden Boat Building
in Limerick, Irelandwhose gandelow project is the sub-
ject of an article beginning on page 24is currently recon-
structing its namesake vessel, A.K. ILEN, a 56-footer built
in 1925. As Patrick Beautement, author of the gandelow
article, writes, ILEN (pronounced eye-len) was designed
Currents250-AdFInal.indd 17
by Limerick man Conor OBrien, who in 192324 became the
first yachtsman to sail south of the three Great CapesGood
Hope, Horn, and Leeuwinin his 42' yacht SAOIRSE . ILEN
was framed in sawn oak, with an elm keel and planking of
yellow pine, sheathed below the waterline in copper. She car-
ried a ketch rig with a square foresail. In 1926, OBrien and
two crew sailed her to Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands,
where for many years she plied an inter-island trade among
the farming communities. She is the last surviving OBrien
boat.
School Director Gary MacMahon, long interested in the
1997. She arrived in Dublin that year, and came to the Ilen
River the next. The hull reconstruction is nearing comple-
tion at Hegartys Boatyard, in Old Court, Skibbereen, in West
Cork, 5 miles upriver from where she was originally built.
Deckhouses, spars, and interior fittings are being made at the
schools workshop in Limerick.
Once situated in Hegartys yard in the top shed, an
ancient stone barn that formerly served as a grain store, the
hull was assessed and her lines documented for the Tradi-
tional Boats of Ireland project [see www.tradboats.ie/projects/
south/ak-ilen and WB No. 206]. Work really got going in 2009,
through an educational program, and she has been reframed
with oak and replanked with Bavarian larch fastened with 5"
custom-cast bronze spikes, which would surely have pleased
OBrien. A new worm shoe of greenheart will soon be bolted
to the original elm keel. The deckhouses, of reclaimed pitch-
pine, are built and are being fitted to the deck on hardwood
sills. The deck planking is of Douglas-fir, as are the mainmast
and bowsprit. The school hopes to sail her to Limerick for her
final fitting out. Shell retain her original ketch sail plan, with
some contemporary adjustments specified by traditional rig-
ger Trevor Ross and naval architect Theo Rye. Many original
metal fittings are being restored, and new fittings made as
needed.
ILEN is back on the Irish register of shipping and has
regained her original 1926 official number, 146843, now
beautifully carved on an oak deckbeam by Cork sculptor
James McLoughlin. By 2017, the Ilen School hopes to see the
good ship plying a new trade in teaching the immemorial
ways of the sea.
A.K. Ilen Company, 94 Henry St., Limerick, V94 XN6V, Ireland;
+353 (0) 862640479; www.ilen.ie.
A.K. ILEN,
namesake of a
boatbuilding
school in
Limerick, Ireland,
has had her
hull rebuilt
at Hegartys
Boatyard in West
Cork. Students
at the Ilen School
and Network for
Wooden Boat
Building have
PATRICK BEAUTEMENT
contributed to the
work, and shell
have a role in
sail-training upon
completion.
May/June 2016 17
3/21/16 11:00 AM
 Offcuts

T he report above from the Ilen School reminds me that

the Currents report in WB No. 248 about school and
youth programs had more entries than would fit. Rather
than making the good people wait, here are four more:

n In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, boatbuilder Nate

Piper of nearby Rye is joining forces with the Strawbery
Banke Museum to make boatbuilding once again part of
the museums programming. The museum envisions not
only exhibits and demonstrations but also boatbuild-
ing workshops for a new boatshop to be installed in an
expanded existing building.
Strawbery Banke, a historic quarter of Portsmouth,
has had boatbuilding as part of its emphasismost nota-
bly by hosting a nonprofit organizations construction of
a gundalow launched in 2011 (see WB No. 233), building
on the legacy of an earlier gundalow project completed in
1982. (The gundalow, not to be confused with the Irish
gandelow described starting on page 24 of this issue, is

Saturday, October 29, 2016 a large, lateen-rigged, barge-like craft of the Piscataqua
River area.) Among the envisioned boatbuilding demon-
strations will be the operation of a nail-making machine,
9am~ 5pm Downtown Manteo Waterfront said to be one of the last three of its type in the United
States fabricating copper clench nails often used by small-
Free Admission craft builders.
Piper, a New Hampshire native, attended The Landing
School of Boatbuilding and Design in Kennebunkport,
Land & water dispLays Maine. He worked on numerous ship and historic vessel
projects before moving to Rye in 1997 to open his own
Friday Evening Exhibitors Dinner Saturday Evening Awards Dinner boatshop, which will continue. Among his projects have
Shops & Restaurants Are Just Steps Away From The Show been the refit of the 1982 gundalow, CAPTAIN EDWARD
H. ADAMS , and he served as project manager for the 2011
gundalow, PISCATAQUA . (As noted in the 2016 edition of
our annual Small Boats magazine and in the February 2015
Small Boats Monthly (our web-only magazine), his boatyard
is also the approved builder of the 13' 6" sailing dinghy
MerryMac, designed by fellow New Hampshire resident
Ned McIntosh.)
Fundraising for the building continues, and volunteers
are sought for demonstrations.
Nate Piper, Piper Boatworks, P.O. Box 879, Rye, NH 03870;
6036862232; www.piperboatworks.com. Strawbery Banke
Museum, P.O. Box 300, Portsmouth, NH 03802; www.straw
berybanke.org.
COURTESY OF CAROLINE PIPER

Volunteers working with Nate Piper (second from

Roanoke Island Maritime Museum right) at the Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, helped construct a shed addition
104 Fernando Street, Manteo, NC 27954 to accommodate boatbuilding demonstrations and
sailing@townofmanteo.com 252-475-1750 programs.

18 WoodenBoat 250

Currents250-AdFInal.indd 18 3/21/16 11:00 AM

 CRAIG MILNER
In its new home on Fan Pier in Boston, Community
Boat Building has been building Periwinkle and
Periwinkle Junior skiffs designed by Nat Benjamin of
Gannon & Benjamin Marine Railway.

n Community Boat Building, an eight-year-old program

for Boston public school students, has a new permanent
location just a stones throw from Boston Harbor at 21 Lib-
erty Drive in the rapidly developing Fan Pier area of the
city, Craig Milner writes. A new teacher, Sarah Besse,
has been working with girls and boys from the Haley Pilot
School in Roslindale who have completed the first two
hulls of the Periwinkle design, a 13' rowing-and-sailing
skiff by Nat Benjamin of Gannon & Benjamin Marine AN EASY CRUISE
Railway on Marthas Vineyard. Next, the seventh graders,
working in their geometry class, will lay out and build the
daggerboards, rudders, and sails. Meanwhile, Interna-
tional Yacht Restoration School graduate Margery Brad-
shaw has been working with students from the Harvard
Kent Elementary School in Charlestown to build 12 Peri-
winkle Juniors, a 10' flat-bottom design also by Benjamin.
Bradshaw also coordinates CBBs summer programs and
the work of volunteers, who play a key role by preparing
TO A STUNNING
DESTINATION
components ahead of time and by finishing and painting
the bare-wood hulls the students have built. The organiza-
tion has a new project director, Stockton Reece, to han-
dle administrative and fundraising duties, which enables
CBBs founder, John Rowse, to work with fi fth-graders
from the Young Achievers Science and Math Pilot School
in Mattapan, who are putting their classroom skills to
work building nine Periwinkle Juniors.
CBBs mission, Rowse says, is to close the opportu-
nity gap for youths from underserved parts of Boston
by generating excitement for learning through hands-on
boatshop experiences that put their classroom skills to SEA HISTORY ALIVE
work in practical ways. Some 200 fourth- and fi fth-graders
are taking part. All fi fth-graders at these Boston schools mysticseaport.org/stories
can take part for free. Every one of those kids gets to
build a boat, Rowse said. These kids dont necessarily
know yet what they want to do in life. What we offer is
the chance for every girl and boy to open their minds to
opportunities by getting their hands dirty. CBB students
demonstrated their skills by building a boat at the New
England Boat Show in February. In June, CBB boats will
launch at Jamaica Pond Boathouse, where they become
part of the rental fleet for the summer, and at the Boston
Rowing Center at Fort Point Channel. Students and their
families can use the boats at no cost. At the end of the
season, the boats are sold to make way for more.

May/June 2016 19

Currents250-AdFInal.indd 19 3/21/16 11:00 AM

 HOW TO
REACH US
TO ORDER FROM OUR STORE:
To order back issues, books, plans, model kits, clothing, or our
catalog, call The WoodenBoat Store, Toll-Free, Monday through

COURTESY OF OLIVER CHOI

Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST (Saturdays, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00
p.m. EST.)
1-800-273-SHIP (7447) (U.S. & CANADA)
207-359-4647 (Overseas)
24-Hour FAX 207-359-2058
Internet: http://www.woodenboatstore.com
Email: wbstore@woodenboat.com

ON-LINE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES:

Oliver Chois school of wooden boat building is
Internet: http://www.woodenboat.com
housed in three handsome buildings in Wonju, South
At www.woodenboat.com follow the link to WoodenBoat Sub-
scriptions to order, give a gift, renew, change address, or check Korea. Trained at the Northwest School of Wooden
your subscription status (payment, expiration date). Boat Building in Port Townsend, Washington, Choi
incorporates such influences as diverse as the stitch-
TO ORDER A SUBSCRIPTION:
and-glue methods of designer-builder Sam Devlin and
To order a subscription (new, renewal,
gift) call Toll-Free, Monday through WoodenBoat is now the cedar-strip kayak techniques of Joe Greenley at
available in digital format.
Friday, 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., PT: Go to
Redfish Kayaks.
1-800-877-5284 (U.S. and Canada) www.woodenboat.com
1-818-487-2084 (Overseas)
Internet: http://www.woodenboat.com
n In South Korea, Oliver Choi has started a school of
TO CALL ABOUT YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: wooden boat building. Earlier, he studied in the United
If you have a question about your subscription, an address States and worked as a designer in London, England, before
change, or a missing or damaged issue, call Toll-Free, returning home in the late 1990s to work in education and
Monday through Friday, 5:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., PT: design. Until 2004, my boatbuilding was no more than hav-
1-800-877-5284 (U.S. & CANADA) ing fun at my backyardthinking of being a professional
1-818-487-2084 (Overseas) boatbuilder was just a vanity in my heart. In 2005, chance
TO CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS: smiled upon me when the government offered me financial
Either call 1-800-877-5284 or write to our subscription depart-
support to go anywhere and do anything for a year or two
ment (address below) AS SOON AS YOU KNOW YOUR NEW to acquire extra knowledge and experiences. Without any
ADDRESS. Please dont depend on your post office to notify hesitation, I went to the Northwest School of Wooden Boat
us. Please give us your old address as well as your new when you Building, in Port Townsend, Washington, where I spent a
notify us, and the date your new address becomes effective. year and half and met many inspiring teachers and friends. I
TO CALL OUR EDITORIAL, ADVERTISING, came home at the end of 2006, facing the reality of urban life
again. In spring 2007, I hung a small sign in front of my own
AND BOAT SCHOOL OFFICES: boatshop in the busy district of Seoul. Almost a year later,
Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., EST: my first customer dropped in by mistake, assuming it was a
207-359-4651; FAX 207-359-8920 coffeehouse named Boat Shop. Business was slow, however,
and wooden boats just werent part of the culture. I was left
TO WRITE: with the other option: teaching people to work together
For subscriptions: For anything else: thats how the boatbuilding school began. In 2009, I decided
WoodenBoat WoodenBoat to get away from limited space and amazingly expensive
Subscription Dept. P.O. Box 78, 41 WoodenBoat Lane
P.O. Box 16958 Brooklin, ME 04616 urban settings to somewhere where there are mountains
N. Hollywood, CA 91615-6958 woodenboat@woodenboat.com and waters. The city of Wonju is where we are now, about an
hour-and-a-half drive southeast of Seoul. On about an acre of
OVERSEAS SUBSCRIPTION OFFICES: land, I built three small buildings, housing a lecture room,
Australia and New Zealand indoor shop, outdoor shop, carpentry shop, wood stock,
Boat Books Australia no longer and milling room, CNC -machining shop, students lounge,
provides WoodenBoat subscriptions.
We Now
Accept visitors lounge, teachers office, and so on. Besides the full-
To subscribe or renew follow
the above instructions or time boatbuilding course, we also offer weekend boatbuild-
Email: wbcirc@woodenboat.com
PayPal ing classes for amateur builders and we build a couple of
Website: www.woodenboat.com custom boats (usually about 25' outboard motorboats) a year.
Click tab: WoodenBoat magazine We have two full-time instructors (including myself) and a
Click on subscription few visiting lecturers instructing 16 students divided into two
Choose foreign subscription
groupsso, we invite eight new students each year. Some
Europe study for one year, after which they go back home to open a
Evecom bv small business or just to enjoy their life building boats. Stu-
Postbox 19 Holland/ United
Germany Kingdom dents who are approved for a second year would normally
9216 ZH Oudega (Sm)
The Netherlands 1 yr EUR 46.50 GBP 33.00 want to be hired by industry, so they work on larger project
Telephone: (0) 512 371999 2 yrs EUR 87.50 GBP 63.00 commissions, usually stitch-and-glue or cold-molded hulls.
Email: WB@evecom.nl 3 yrs EUR 127.50 GBP 91.00 We are also studying Koreas traditional methods of building
Website: www.evecom.eu (CE tax included) wooden boats, and we gather information, take lines, and
make records before these boats are permanently gone.

20 WoodenBoat 250

Currents250-AdFInal.indd 20 3/24/16 4:44 PM

 Across the bar
n Maurice John Morrie Rhude, 91, January 26, 2016,
Marinette, Wisconsin. Mr. Rhude was the president and
owner of Sentinel Structures, Inc., of Peshtigo, a manu-
facturer of structural laminated timber with a project
list that included many restorations and constructions of
large wooden ships. He grew up on a family farm in Elk
Mound and started his education in a one-room school-
house. After a year at Eau Claire State Teachers College,
he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1943 and served aboard
USS DENVER during World War II. After the war, he
earned bachelors and masters degrees in engineering at
University of Wisconsin, Madison. He worked as an engi-
neering teacher there and as a researcher at the USDA For-
est Products Laboratory until 1951, when he joined Unit
Structures, Inc. (later part of Koppers Inc.) in Peshtigo.
He was named chief engineer in 1954 and vice president
in 1961. In the early 1950s, the company made laminated
white oak and Douglas-fir timbers for U.S. Navy mine-
sweepers, but its output also involved yacht timbers, nota-
bly for the Sparkman & Stephensdesigned NINA of 1955.
In 1972, Mr. Rhude established Sentinel Structures in the
same facility that had been occupied by Unit Structures
and continued laminating timbers for Navy minesweepers
but also for the restoration of such historic ships as USS
CONSTITUTION, USS CONSTELLATION, and C.A. THAYER
and for reconstructions of the brig NIAGARA , SPIRIT OF
SOUTH CAROLINA, Great Lakes schooner DENIS SULLIVAN,
ENDEAVOUR , LYNX, and VIRGINIA .

n Michael Lawler, 70, January 7, 2016, Santa Barbara,

California. Mr. Lawler, who was born in Callicoon, New

EXTREME
York, lived in various places, including Hawaii and Japan,
before settling with his family in Santa Barbara in 1961.
Educated as an architect and geographer, he maintained a

PASSION
lifetime passion for woodworking that extended to boats,
among them rowing shells, wherries, skiffs, a steamboat,
many kayaks, and more than 500 models. His interest in

REQUIRED
restoring classic rowing craft led him to a friendship with
Darryl Strickler, author of Rowable Classics, who died a
few months earlier; see WB No. 248. Mr. Lawler helped
produce the book and wrote its foreword.

n Kay Ellis, 65, March 2, 2016, Gloucester, Massachu- MAKE ANYTHING POSSIBLE
setts. In 1997, Mrs. Ellis and her husband, Tom, had the
65' schooner THOMAS E. LANNON (see WB No. 143) built
by Harold Burnham at Essex Shipbuilding Museum for
daysailing charters out of Gloucester. Mrs. Ellis grew up
in Beverly, Massachusetts, but lived most of her life in
Gloucester, working in various careers such as teaching
and real estate before becoming manager of Essex River
Basin Adventures, a sea kayaking company co-founded by
her husband. Charters with the LANNON, a traditionally
crafted, double-sawn frame schooner, became their next
family business, with her sons Heath and Brian both tak-
ing active roles dating back to the construction (see www.
schooner.org). For many years, their summer voyaging
alternated with extended ski trips to Wyoming.

n Michael Scarborough, 59, December 27, 2015, Rock-

port, Maine. Mr. Scarboroughs career mostly involved
newspaper production, but he had wide-ranging, some- School of Technology & Trades
times eccentric, interests, one of which was coastal WWW.IYRS.EDU/WOODENBOAT
kayaking. At WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, he built
two wooden sea kayaks. In 1999, he moved to Friendship,
continued kayaking, and also took up tobogganing.

May/June 2016 21

Currents250-AdFInal.indd 21 3/21/16 11:00 AM

 36

WOODENBOAT SCHOOL
2016 SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
MAY JUNE JULY
2228 / 294 5 11 12 18 19 25 26 2 39 10 16 17 23 24 30
Fundamentals of Boatbuilding Fundamentals of Boatbuilding Fundamentals of Boatbuilding Fundamentals of Boatbuilding
with Greg Rssel with Wade Smith with Greg Rssel with Warren Barker
ALUMNI WORK WEEK
ALUMNI WORK WEEK

Making Friends with Your Build Your Own Build Your Own Greenland Introduction to Cold- Build Your Own Traditional Wood-and-
Wooden Boat Restoration Methods
Marine Diesel Engine Annapolis Wherry Skin-on-Frame Kayak Molded Construction Stitch-and-Glue Kayak Canvas Canoe Construction
with Walt Ansel
with Jon Bardo with Geoff Kerr with Mark Kaufman with Mike Moros with Eric Schade with Rollin Thurlow

Introduction to Fine Strip-Planked Boat Boatbuilders Introduction to Build Your Own Building the
Woodcarving Building a Nordic Pram
Boatbuilding Construction Hand Tools Woodworking Friendship Sloop Model McKenzie River Dory
with Reed Hayden with F. Jay Smith
with John Karbott with Nick Schade with Harry Bryan with Bill Thomas with Mark Wilkins with Brad Dimock

Blacksmithing for Elements of Sailing

Coastwise Navigation Lofting Computer Design Rebuilding a Herreshoff 12
Boatbuilders with Jane Ahlfeld
with Rich Naple with Greg Rssel with Clint Chase with Eric Dow
with Doug Wilson and Rich Naple

Elements of Sailing for Elements of Sailing Elements of Sailing Vintage Pond

Craft of Sail on MISTY
Women with Jane Ahlfeld with Sue LaVoie with Martin Gardner Yachts Part II
with Queene Foster
and Robin Lincoln & Rich Naple and Sue LaVoie with Thom McLaughlin

Skills of Coastal Craft of Sail Craft of Sail on Painting the Downeast

Seamanship on TAMMY NORIE BUFFLEHEAD Coast in Oils
with Andy Oldman with Joel Roland with Daniel Bennett with Jerry Rose

tes
Gift certifica East, West & Island Exploration Cruising through
the Watches
Elements of Sailing II
with Martin Gardner
all
with Andy Oldman and

available for
Madeline Otani Oldman with Hans Vierthaler & Rich Naple

courses!
WoodenBoat
Seascape/Landscape Tallship Sailing and Sea- Cruising in Tandem
in Watercolor manship with Capt. Barry with Hans Vierthaler &
with Paul Trowbridge King & Jane Ahlfeld Queene Foster

Cant make it to Brooklin, Maine? CHESAPEAKE LIGHT CRAFT SHOP, Annapolis, Maryland

2016 OFF-SITE COURSES MARCH 21-26 Build Your Own Annapolis Wherry
With Geoff Kerr
Were very excited to be working with John Harris APRIL 4-9 Build Your Own Stitch-and-Glue Kayak
With Eric Schade
and the good folks at CHESAPEAKE LIGHT CRAFT
in Annapolis, Maryland, and, once again, to be able APRIL 11-16 Build Your Own Northeaster Dory
With George Krewson
to offer courses at their excellent facility.
MAY 2-7 Build Your Own Lapstrake Dinghy
www.clcboats.com With Bill Cave

WBSchool-248-Final.indd 22 3/22/16 8:09 PM

 ACCESS TO EXPERIENCE
The finest instructors available and a beautiful location on the coast of Maine make
WoodenBoat School an exciting learning experience for amateurs and professionals alike.
This season, our 36th, we are offering over 90 one- and two-week courses in
various facets of boatbuilding, as well as, seamanship and related crafts.

AUGUST SEPTEMBER
31 6 7 13 14 20 21 27 28 3 4 10 11 17 18 24 25 1

Fundamentals of Boatbuilding with Building the Penobscot 13 Fundamentals of Boatbuilding Building the Maine Coast Peapod
FAMILY WEEK
Thad Danielson with Arch Davis with Greg Rssel with Sam Temple

Build Your Own Wood Stitch-and-Glue Build Your Own Fine Strip-Planked Build Your Own Making Friends with Your
Duck Kayak Building the Ocean Pointer Building a Dory
Boatbuilding Northeaster Dory Boat Construction Willow/Quickbeam Sea Kayak Marine Diesel Engine
with Eric Schade with Bob Fuller & John Karbott with Graham McKay
with John Harris with George Krewson with Nick Schade with Bill Thomas with Jon Bardo

Build Your Own Traditional and Marine Painting Introduction to Glued-Lapstrake Finishing Out
Advanced Woodcarving Scratch Modelmaking Building Half Models
Bevins Skiff Modern Oarmaking & Varnishing Boatbuilding Plywood Construction Small Boats
with Reed Hayden with Steve Rogers with Eric Dow
with Christian Smith with Clint Chase with Gary Lowell with Bill Thomas with John Brooks with John Brooks

Build Your Own Echo Maine Coast: Watercolor Introduction to

The Arts of the Sailor Elements of Boat Design The Art of Woodcuts Lofting
Bay Dory Skiff Travel Sketchbook Canvas Work
with Eric Stockinger with John Brooks with Gene Shaw with Greg Rssel
with Clint Chase with Amy Hosa with Ann Brayton

Learn to Sail Bronze Casting Metalworking for the Marine Photography Marine Photography II
for Boatbuilders Rebuilding a Herreshoff 12
with Jane Ahlfeld Boatbuilder & Woodworker with Jon Strout with Jon Strout
with Michael Saari with Eric Dow
& Gretchen Snyder with Erica Moody & Jane Peterson & Jane Peterson

Elements of Sailing for Elements of Sailing Elements of Sailing II

Sailing Downeast Open Boat Cruising Sea Sense Under Sail Sea Sense Under Sail
Women with Jane Ahlfeld with Annie Nixon with Martin Gardner
with Andy Oldman with Geoff Kerr with Havilah Hawkins with Havilah Hawkins
& Annie Nixon & Rich Naple & Robin Lincoln

The Catboat Craft of Sail on MISTY Craft of Sail on Craft of Sail on MISTY Coastal Cruising
with Martin Gardner with Queene Foster BUFFLEHEAD for Women Seamanship
with Daniel Bennett with Queene Foster with Hans Vierthaler

Coastal Cruising Elements of Coastal

Seamanship Kayaking
with Hans Vierthaler with Mike OBrien

Elements of
Recreational Kayaking
with Mike OBrien

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Check our website for our entire 2016 program:
www.woodenboat.com
SEPT. 5-10 Build Your Own Sassafras
With Bill Cave or call Kim or Rich at: 2073594651
SEPT. 26-OCT. 1 Build Your Own Northeaster Dory To order a complete course catalog, call toll-free:
With Bill Cave 1-800-273-SHIP (7447)
OCT. 24-29 Build Your Own Annapolis Wherry
With Geoff Kerr WOODENBOAT SCHOOL
OCT. 31-NOV. 5 Build Your Own Stitch-and-Glue Kayak P.O. Box 78, Brooklin, Maine 04616-0078
With Eric Shade Find us on Facebook!

WBSchool-248-Final.indd 23 3/22/16 8:09 PM

 To Build a Gandelow
Resurrecting a working rowboat from
Irelands Shannon River Estuary, Part 2
Text and photographs by Patrick Beautement
O ur construction of four gandelows by the A.K.
Ilen Wooden Boat Building School paid homage
to the workboats of previous generations. How-
ever, gandelows also have long been associated not only
with fishing but also with racing and pleasure boating,
both more likely uses for these fine craft in modern
times.
A recently discovered photograph (visible at the
Limerick Life website, www.limerickslife.com) shows
what appear to be gandelows painted up and fitted out
as pleasure boats by the Limerick Rowing Club as early
as 1864. Though the boats seem to be painted white
inside and have fancy seats, the distinctive stern still
suggests a gandelow. Since our project, the Ilen School
team has been approached by boatbuilders in Cork in
the south of Ireland, and we know of one gandelow
built as far away as the Northwest School of Wooden
Boat Building in Port Townsend, Washington, in 2012,
with some interesting variations in design.
With ordinary precautions for a small, open boat
meaning the judicious use of inflatable buoyancy bags
and proper use of life jacketsgandelows make good
craft for family days out. They are maneuverable and
seaworthy. They were never built as sailing craft, but
AboveA new gandelow takes to the River Shannon at Limerick, where boats of this broad-transom type were once
commonplace.
24 WoodenBoat 250
Gandelow-Part2-250-EdFinal.indd 24
SEAN CURTIN
in the past, fishermen on the long passage homeward
bound up the Shannon would set a single sail on a small
mast to take advantage of the prevailing wind from the
west, so a small downwind sailing rig would be possible.
These days, the transom, with only a little modification,
could carry a small outboard motor, no doubt for a fast
and lively ride. To add flotation, with an eye to mod-
ern safety requirements, a built-in locker could easily
be added forward, following the style of the net locker
aft, to hold inflatable buoyancy bags, which could also
be placed inside the net locker. Gandelows built specifi-
cally with racing in mind could be built with thinner or
lighter woods to minimize weight.
Gandelows are relatively easy to build using read-
ily available materials, tools, and familiar techniques.
They are suitable for lakes, rivers, and even coastal
waterways. A boat could be built by two people in about
a month. We of the Ilen School team have no doubt
that the gandelow, as a type, still has much life in it.
At the end of Part 1, we described the completion of
the butterfly planks, and we resume the narrative with
the installation of the sheerstrakes, which also have
some characteristics unique to gandelows. Then, fitting
out the interior will be described in detail.
3/23/16 1:20 PM
 19. which to plane the roll-
ing bevel fair. The bat-
ten was moved to the
opposite side and the
process repeated.
After the bevels were
completed and the
sheer batten removed,
the first sheerstrake
could be clamped in
place for marking. To
define its top edge,
the marks were trans-
ferred to it from each
mold, the stem, and
the transom. Its lower
edge could be traced
directly onto the sheer-
strakes inside face, fol-
lowing the top edge of
the butterfly plank for
its whole length. Later,
after removing the
sheerstrake, we added
The sheerstrakes. Forward, the sheerstrakes were 118" to the traced lower edge to account for the width
shaped much like the two previous planks, with the of the planks overlap. The hood ends at the stem and
same 118" lap. Again, however, the aft area has a com- transom were also marked, but we left the aft end long
plication: a chine-like angle between the last butterfly to be cut off after installation. The sheerstrake had only
plank and the sheerstrake, visible in Photo 19. This one gain to cut, in the inside lower corner at the for-
time, it was the corner of the second butterfly plank ward end, and after it was finished the plank was ready.
that had to be planed to a rolling bevel while in place The forward part needed to be steamed, and the plank
on the boat. followed the same bedding and nailing methods used
First, we established the sheerline on one side by in the previous ones.
tacking a batten along the top-of-plank marks on the Typically, the bottom edge of the sheerstrake hangs
molds and then adjusting it by eye to fair the line. It is down just below the overlap aft in the area of the roll-
a local tradition to avoid too much spring in the sheer ing bevel, and local tradition leaves it just like thisit is
forward; in fact, many builders reduce its height at the not planed off. The clench nails in this part of the lap
stem by about 34" while fairing the line. When finalized, angle downward through the second butterfly planks
the sheer was then marked on each mold and at the edge, so we were especially careful to drill accurate
stem and transom, after which the marks were transferred pilot holes.
to the opposite side. The sheerstrake on the opposite side has to be fit in
While the sheer batten was still in place, we used it to the same way, without assuming that its shape will be
help establish the rolling bevel needed at the top out- identical to the first one. After both sheerstrakes were
side corner of the butterfly plank between about Sta- completed, all the aft plank ends were cut off flush with
tion 5 and the transom. This creates a landing for the the transom, and our work turned to the interior.
sheerstrakes inside face along its lower edge. For
this task, we used a guide toola preacher, as we
call them, as mentioned in Part 1. This preacher, 20.
shown in Photo 20, was made from a simple, straight
length of wood to help mark the bevels. Near one
end, a deep notch 118" long was made, correspond-
ing to the lap width. At the opposite end, a long
cutout was made, this one to a depth matching the
thickness of the sheer batten, as visible in the photo,
so that the tools inside edge would correspond to
the inside face of the yet-to-be-installed sheerstrake.
With the cutaway upper end held against the batten,
as shown, the preacher was adjusted vertically until
the lower notchs corners touched both the planks
face and its top edge. Marks made at these points at
various locations along the plank, and faired with
a batten afterward, showed the depth and angle at

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 21. called limbers allow water to move easily; all knees must
have these. Limbers were also built into the knees at
each plank lap. The knees tapered toward their tops,
and there they were cut short at an angle picked up
from the lofting to accommodate the gunwales, which
fit on top of them and are nailed stoutly down into each
one. The faying surfaces of the knees were tradition-
ally bedded in tar, and fastened by driving galvanized
nails driven through the planking from the outside.
Nowadays, we use bedding compound and stainless-
steel screws.

22.

The knees. There are two styles in common use in Ire-

land for gandelow knees, or frames as others may call
them. In one, the knees are a hockey-stick shape with
the heels ending about 6" inboard from the side planks,
all the better if its grain follows the curve. In the other,
a filler piece is added between the heel of each knee
and this was the style we followed. The knees and filler
pieces are nailed to the forward faces of the saddles.
Given the mighty strength of the Irish rowersbelieve
me, Ive seen it firsthandthese pieces must fit tightly
to the floor and to the sides, because they add an impor-
tant element to the boats strength. We made knees
from oak blanks 78" thick, and the pieces were carefully

23.
selected to ensure the best possible grain direction to
minimize cracking.
Traditionally, most boatbuilders jealously guarded
their knee patterns, since they, together with other
measurements and patterns, could be used instead of
molds when building boats by eye. We made light ply-
wood templates, as shown in Photo 21, from our plans,
but each knee at each station is unique and has to be
final-fitted individually. In our boat, the outer faces of
the knees from Stations 1 through 7, are stepped to fit
the inside faces of the lapped planks but are parallel to
one another, making them quite straight. At Stations 8
and 9 they were distinctly concave. At Stations 1 and 9
we omitted the filler pieces in the middle.
Note that at the chine, as shown in Photo 23, gaps

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 24.
The gunwales. The gunwales were cut from 14'-long
pieces of white deal (Norway pine) planed to 2" wide
and 114" thick, scarfed together to make them full-
length. The gunwales fit tight against the inboard
face of the sheerstrakes and to the tops of the knees.
For the proper fit, 10-degree bevels were planed along
their outboard faces, so their upward slant isnt as
pronounced as it would be otherwise. The top of each
knee has already been angled to match. The forward
end of each gunwale had to fit snugly to the stem and
the aft end to the transom.
We steamed the forward 8' or so of the gunwales and
essentially used the boat as a bending form, clamp-
ing them to the outside of the sheerstrakes, as shown
in Photo 24. To protect the planks at the stem while
steam-bending the gunwales, we fitted a triangular
stem support just behind the stemhead. Shaped like a
breasthook and made of oak offcuts, this brace was tem-
porarily fastened with screws just behind the stemhead.
Left overnight to cool, the gunwales were ready the next
day to be final-fitted to the inside of the sheerstrakes
and fastened in place.
Gandelow-Part2-250-EdFinal.indd 27
25.
The breasthook and quarter knees. Traditionally,
builders used bog oak, which is very tough but diffi-
cult to find today. Our breasthook (Photo 25) was cut
from a 9" 9" piece of 78"-thick oak and, once shaped,
was bedded and firmly fastened in place with two 4",
3
16"-diameter stainless-steel screws from the outside and
two 2", 18"-diameter screws from the inside. Each of the
quarter knees, also 78" thick (Photo 26), was shaped
from a piece 14" 6" and fit against the transom and its
respective gunwale. They canted upwards at the tran-
som, to match the angles at the tops of the gunwales.
They were carefully beveled for a tight fit, and in place of
the traditional tar and galvanized nails we used bedding
compound and fastened each of them with stainless-
steel screws, using two of 2", 18" diameter driven from the
inside and one of 4", 316"-diameter driven from outside
through the sheerstrakes and gunwale.
26.
May/June 2016 27
3/23/16 1:21 PM
 27. to follow the shape of the transom and sheerstrakes,
spaced to shed water and allow ventilation. The hatch
should fit as tightly as possible but must clear the knees
and quarter knees when being lifted out.

28.

The net locker. Traditionally, the hatch over the net

locker functions like a deck, and it is the place where
someone would stand while paying out or hauling in
the nets over the stern. The hatch is removable and cov-
ers a space where nets were stored. The wide stern of
a butterfly-planked boat is buoyant and commodious,
making it ideal for these tasks. In past times, so the sto-
ries go, this space might also store other itemssuch as
goods being hidden from the (often English) customs
officers on a boats journeys up and down the Shannon.
The hatch sits on cleats shaped out of 78"-thick offcuts,
usually of oak. For our boats, a filler piece atop the
Station 9 knees supported a cleat on its aft face, and
another cleat was fastened to the transom. Both are
visible in Photo 27. The hatch planks land on these
cleats, as shown in Photo 28. The hatchs five stout,
tapered softwood planks, about 34" thick, 612" wide at
their forward ends, and 3' long, as shown, were shaped
and fastened to 3" 1" athwartships battens underneath.
The ends and sides of the hatch planks were beveled

Stringers, thwarts, and thwart knees. The stringers, or running parallel to the thwarts surface. They were set
seat risers as some call them, are made from two pieces square to the planking face, not aligned with the center-
of red deal (Scotch pine) 13' 6" long, 212" wide, and lines of the thwarts. They were screw-fastened down
about 1" thick, and tapered at both ends. The top inside through the thwarts into the stringers, in through the
corner of each stringer was then beveled off to be 34" side planks, down through the gunwale, and up from
wide and provide a flat landing for the thwarts. The top below, all in carefully drilled pilot holes.
of the stringer typically is 8" below the top of
the gunwale. The position of thwarts can be
adjusted on the stringers to suit the size of
the boat and the size and weight of the row- 29.
ers, which can be tested on the water first
before final fitting. Usually, a 33" spacing
between thwarts, measured edge to edge,
works well. The stringers were fitted and fas-
tened to the knees from Stations 2 through
8, as shown in Photo 29. The thwarts were
cut out of three pieces of red deal, 9" wide
by about 1" thick and starting off at 48" long.
The forward and after edges are rounded.
The ends are cut to follow the curve of the
inside face of the topside planking, leaving
a 12" space for ventilation. We made thwart
knees from oak about 1" thick cut from
blanks 16" long and 6" wide, with the grain

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 30. The paddles, tholepins, and tholepads. The tholepins
are usually 9" long, turned out of green oak to a pro-
nounced taper. The paddlesas oars are called here
traditionally were homemade, but commercially made
ones are quite adequate. They should be 9' 6" long for
the center and bow positions and 9' long for the stern.
The poles, as we call the looms, are 212" in diameter,
the hand grips 112" in diameter. The blades are 1" thick,
18" long, and 4" at the widest. Traditionally, the paddles
were painted matte gray, except for the hand grips,
which were not painted. Leathers 8" long were stitched
on (see WB No. 127) to protect the poles from chafe
against the thole pins and pads.
The hardwood thole pads were 14" long, 214" wide,
and 1" thick. Two tapered holes were drilled 5" apart
and reamed to the taper, as shown in Photo 30, to fit
the tholepins. The spacing varies depending on the
type of rowing to be done and the diameter of the
poles. For fishermen, the spacing was usually not less
than 412", but for racing the spacing increased up to
512" to allow for a longer sweep. The thole pads had to
be positioned along the gunwale with care, so the holes
through the gunwales would not damage the top of any
of the knees or the sheerstrakes. Strength is important.
The untimely breaking of paddles and tholepins has
featured in many a story about famous races of the
pastand, indeed, in the races in September 2014
breakages led to a nail-biting and exciting final battle
to the finish line.

31.
Caulking. Cotton caulk-
ing follows usual practice
in the stem rabbets, the
sternpost rabbets both of
the garboards and the
gorings, and in the floor
planking, as shown in
Photo 31, all of which is best
done with the boat turned
upside-down. Traditionally,
tar would be poured in
after caulking, but we used
primer paint followed by
seam compound.

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 32.

The stem and sternpost caps and gars.

Before these trim pieces could be fitted,
the part of the garboard protruding below
the floor had to be planed flush. The stem
and sternpost capping pieces strengthen the
birds-mouth joints at the bases of the stem
and sternpost, as shown in Photo 32. These
caps were made from pieces of 34"-thick oak,
7" long and 5" at the widest, bedded and
screwed onto the bottom. These caps were
made to be replaceable, since they will get
a lot of wear in grounding. Gars, as we call
them, are hardwood rubbing strips fixed to
the bottom to cover the seam between the
garboard and the floor, also visible in the
photo. The ends of the gars butt against the
capping pieces. The gars were made 1" wide
and 34" thick, running the full length of the
boat. A bevel planed on the inside edge,
experience has shown, helps the flow of
water. The gars were bedded and fastened
to the garboards with galvanized nails, as
shown in the photo.

Shaping the stemhead and rub-

bing rails. The stemhead was cut
to shape to reflect regional pref-
erences, and a hole was drilled
through it to receive a light mooring
line, or painter. Following tradi-
tion, we fitted a strong eyebolt 10"
up from the heel of the stem. A
line made off to the eyebolt helps
when dragging a boat across mud
or sand up onto the riverbanks.
Also, many boats were traditionally
moored on the river, so a mooring
line from a stone anchor left on
the bottom could be made off to
the eyebolt. Given the Shannons fast
flow and its tidal range, the builder

33.
made sure to install a strong eye-
bolt, and the fisherman used a
good ropeotherwise the boat
could go missing.
The rubbing rail, or rubrail as some call it, is made of hardwood 1" square in section; we used mahogany. The
outer face is rounded off, as shown in Photo 33, and the rail shaped to fit snugly to the stem. For a bright finish,
the nail or screw heads are recessed and bunged.

30 WoodenBoat 250

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 34.
Patrick Beautement has recently retired from leading technical
research programs. He trained at the Lyme Regis Boat Building
Academy in England in 2012 and is now a journeyman boatbuilder
who is gaining more experience in the rolling stone style. In 2015,
he published a full guide to building the Limerick gandelow, includ-
ing tables of offsets and patterns for all parts, including the molds,
stem, sternpost, knees, breasthook, transom, quarter knees. As noted
in Part 1, these drawings are available as PDF downloads at the
WoodenBoat website, www.woodenboat.com, providing full infor-
mation needed for construction. For information on ordering the
authors book, see www.beautement.com/boats.htm.
Gandelow-Part2-250-EdFinal.indd 31
Finishing. Gandelows were typically painted gray,
with a red inner floor, as in Photo 34. One theory
is that gray paint was easily available from the dock-
yards, but another is that it made the boats hard to
see on a misty day on the river when its occupants
wished to escape notice. Some say gray was simply tra-
ditional and set the boats off at their best. The red
floor was to mask fish blood, Im told. Final finishing
is, of course, up to the owner. After painting, the boat
is ready for launchingand for use.
The gandelows built in 2014 at the A.K. Ilen School of
Wooden Boat Building have been racing regularly on
the River Shannon off Limerick, where rowing races
have a long history.
Sean Curtin
The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the permission of Jim
McInerney for use of historical material and photographs, and also
extends his thanks to all the other members of the Ilen School com-
munity for their encouragement and assistance, especially Director
Gary MacMahon, Chief Instructor James Madigan, master ship-
wright Matt Dirr, the gandelow building team, and the Gandelow
Gang rowers.
For further reading, see The Gandelow: A Shannon Estuary
Fishing Boat, by Jim McInerney, published by A.K. Ilen Company,
2005.
May/June 2016 31
3/23/16 1:22 PM
WBSub_FP_250.indd 32 3/22/16 8:32 PM
 AUTHOR COLLECTION (THIS PAGE)
Building
SILVER THREAD
A traditional Cornish lug-and-mizzen
by Simon Watts

S
ILVER THREAD is a close copy of a boat type once
widely used in Cornish harbors and estuaries in
the 19th century and well into the 20th. The boats,
known as lug-and-mizzens on account of their rigs, were
used as waterborne taxis for ferrying fish, gear, crew,
and supplies in and around harbors. The masts are
stepped at the ends of the boat to leave a clear working
space in the middle. There are three rowing stations, so
rowing from the forward station leaves plenty of room
for passengers, nets, and other gear. The small mizzen
serves as a riding or steadying sail.

TopSILVER THREAD is a copy of SUMMER HAZE, a lug-and-

mizzen-rigged boat purchased in the 1920s by the authors
father. Here, the authors son and granddaughter, Richard
and Rose, sailSILVER THREAD in the Lahave Islands, Nova
Scotia. MiddleOne of Arthur Wattss last drawings (1935)
for the British humor magazine Punch is based on SUMMER
HAZE . RightAlice Sloan and her father, David, were among
the many eager and talented people who helped build SILVER
THREAD.

May/June 2016 33

SILVER THREAD 250-EdFinal.indd 33 3/23/16 6:36 PM

 Padstow in the early 1900s.The
harbor, which now has locks,
was tidal then, so all boats
grounded out at low tide. Several
lug-and-mizzen-rigged craft
appear here along the seawall.
These were working craft that
evolved according to the neces-
sities of the time and the build-
ing techniques and materials
then available. As the Cornish
gig builder Ralph Bird once said
to me, They never came off no
drawing board. All were locally
built using native woods
narrow-leaf Cornish elm for the
planking and white-oak frames
fastened with copper rivets.
In 1926, my parents bought an old mill house in Sea
Mills, Cornwall, not far from Padstow, a prosperous fish-
ing community on the north coast. My father, Arthur
Watts, was an artist and keen sailor who soon acquired
one of the remaining lug-and-mizzens, a 16' boat built
in 1906 by one Steven Braybin. She was called SUMMER
HAZE , and has been around longer than I have. One of
my earliest memories, from age five or so, is getting my
fingers caught under a roller while helping my father
launch the boat. She had tanbark cotton sails and an
iron centerboard that was liable to crush the fingers of
the unwarynot an ideal boat for us children. My sister
and I were seldom taken out sailing but amused our-
selves by puddling around in the mud catching shrimp,
prawns, and the occasional flounder.
Arthur kept the boat on an outhaul mooring, but
the estuary had been partly blocked off from the main
channel by a low railway bridge. This made getting in
and out under sail tricky, and my father would tip the
boat at an extreme angle to clear the bridge. Many
years later, while reading through Steven Braybins day
books, I came across a number of entries that told their
own story: Commander Watts: Repair Mast; or Commander were tank traps, barbed wire, and gun emplacements,
Watts; Make New Gaff.
The Drascombes
By the 1950s, the lug-and-mizzen tradition was fad-
ing. The story may have ended there, but in 1965 an
enterprising boatbuilder, John Watkinson, began
building 16-footers that he trademarked as Dras-
combe Luggers. (Drascombe is a made-up, trade-
marked word like HagenDazs.) These open boats
were intended as daysailers, with boomless mainsails
and wells for small outboard motors that could be
raised or lowered as needed. They carried the tra-
ditional lug and mizzen rig with the addition of a
short bowsprit and jib. The construction at first was
34 WoodenBoat 250
SILVER THREAD 250-EdFinal.indd 34
Courtesy ofthe Padstow Museum and Rodney Bate
In 1935, just before my sixth birthday, Arthur Watts
was killed in a flying accident the same year he did one
of his best drawings for the humorous magazine Punch
(now defunct). It features a grizzled old skipper sailing
a lug-and-mizzen in stormy weather with two terrified
tourists onboard. The boat is clearly SUMMER HAZE,
two reefs down, minus the mizzen.
With the death of Arthur, my mother had to sell
the house at Sea Mills. SUMMER HAZE was laid up in
a field and her sails and spars put in storage. Shortly
afterward, we moved to London, where we spent the
war years. In 1946 we retrieved SUMMER HAZE from
the fieldI remember grass growing up through her
plankingand had her repaired at Braybins boatyard
in Padstow, where shed been built. After a few new
frames, a couple of coats of paint, and beating the rust
off the centerboard, the boat was, if not like new, at
least serviceable.
My sister and I were now quite old enough to handle
the boat, and we made good use of her. There was still
a hangover from the war yearsespecially in Cornwall.
Beaches had not yet been cleared of mines, and there
so no one (including our mother) paid any attention to
glued-lapstrake plywood, with four planks per side,
but fiberglass construction took over as production
increased.
The original Lugger was followed by several varia-
tionsthe Dabber, the Drifter, and the Coaster
all with the same basic gaff rig, centerboard, and
outboard-motor well. For trailering, the oars, spars,
and motor fit inside the boat. Its not surprising that
the Drascombe line became immensely popular, and
remains so. For details, visit www.drascombe.co.uk.
SW
3/23/16 6:36 PM
 The author hanging a plank on SILVER THREAD in his island
workshop in Nova Scotia. The deep-reach, clothespin-type
clamps are an essential tool in lapstrake construction.
a couple of teenagers taking a rather leaky 16' sailboat
out of the harbor and into the open sea.
We carried little gearnot even life jacketsjust a
pair of oars, a grapnel, a bailer, and a tattered chart.
We went hand-lining for mackerel, explored the nar-
row, rocky coves of the north Cornish coast, and sal-
vaged what we could from floating wreckage. We did
race SUMMER HAZE in local regattas but were woefully
ignorant of racing rules and the attendant etiquette.
More than once, we had a competitor pinned between
us and the beach with every intention of putting them
ashore despite frenzied cries of, water, water. I was
unwise enough to take one of my first dates out for a
sail in SUMMER HAZE. It was a gray, blustery day, and as
we were tying up at the end of the sail, I remember her
saying, Well, thank you very much. That was cold, wet,
and frightening.
O
ne of Braybins last jobs was replacing the keel
of a 28' pilot gig named NEWQUAY. This was a
major operation and had not been attempted
around there before. Local opinion was unanimous:
Cant be done, Steven. But Braybin closed the yard
to all but his most trusted workmen until the job was
completed. After NEWQUAY, he made repairs to several
of the other surviving gigs before retiring in 1956.
These pilot gigs were fast, six-oared craft, 28' to 32'
long, based on the boats of the Scilly Isles, which strad-
dle the Bristol and English channels. With no radios,
the gigs had to wait around until an approaching ves-
sel, flying the flag to request a pilot, was sighted. Then
there was a mad race to board the ship, since the first
gig to reach her got the job, and the losers gained noth-
ing but a long row home. Not only was speed essential,
but the gigs had to be light enough to be picked up and
carried by their crew of seven and able to go out regard-
less of weather, winter or summer.
William Peters began building gigs around 1790 in
St. Mawes on the Falmouth estuary. The Peters family
SILVER THREAD 250-EdFinal.indd 35
AUTHOR COLLECTION (this page)
soon found themselves in the enviable position of being
their own competitors. A new gig was a major invest-
ment, so a group of pilots would get together and order
a new boaton condition that it was faster than a
rivals that had also been built by the Peters. As a result
of these stringent requirements, the design and build-
ing techniques evolved rapidly. With the completion of
the 32' TREFFRY in 1835, considered the finest boat that
William Peters ever built, even the Peters family could
make no further significant improvements. TREFFRY
would be critical to my understanding of SUMMER
HAZEs construction when, many years after my youthful
adventures, I built a replica of her.
I
n 1953, I left England for Canada to take up a
career in civil engineering. We gave SUMMER
HAZE to friends at Sea Mills, who sailed her occa-
sionally but then retired her to a sheltered garden spot.
She remained there for the next 20 or so years, blocked
up off the ground but exposed to wind and weather.
In 2002, after Id acquired some skill as a boat-
builder, my sister and I decided that SUMMER HAZE was
too important historically and too much a part of our
own familys history to be let go, so we decided to build
a copy of her. By this time, there had been a renewal
of interest in pilot gigs and a small group
of dedicated individuals had been find-
ing and restoring the few remaining boats.
TREFFRY had been measured and her plans
published. This inspired a whole generation
of new boats and boatbuilders pioneered by
Ralph Bird on the Helston estuary in south
Cornwall. When I met him in 1991, Ralph
had a half-built gig in his workshop, the
18th boat he had built to TREFFRY s lines.
The author and his sister, Marjorie-Ann, with
SUMMER HAZE in the garden at Sea Mills, 2001.
Since the old boat was by then beyond repair,
the only option to preserve her was to build an
exact replica. The double guardrails are a typical
detail of these harbor craft.
May/June 2016 35
3/23/16 6:36 PM
 Kathryn Mason and her sons, Galen and
Isaac, try out the newly launched SILVER
THREAD before the masts were trimmed
to their proper lengths.
TREFFRY s construction was vir-
tually identical to SUMMER HAZEs
except that TREFFRY s planking was
thinnera bare 14", with every part
fined down to its essentials. Ralph
showed how the frames were joggled
to better support the thin planking
each frame carefully fitted to the plank
laps before being fastened. This may
seem a fussy, time-consuming detail,
but it makes obvious sense when one
considers such frail craft coming
alongside a vessel to be boarded, with
a sea running. Another precaution was
to fasten the seat knees with clenched
copper nails, not rivets, so they would yield, not break,
when struck a heavy blow that might punch a seat right
through the planking.
There are 28 seat knees in each gig, plus the same
number of lodging knees. Grown knees being scarce,
Ralph had devised a technique for laminating them in
quantity, gluing them up five or six at a time. Unlike
the older generation of boatbuilders, Ralph was most
generous with his time and expertise. He died of lung
cancer in 2009, having completed 29 gigs and restored
many more.
I went back to Sea Mills to take the measurements
of SUMMER HAZE preparatory to building a new boat.
Because I had had little experience in drawing lines,
I made templates of the inside of the hull, both sides,
every foot or so. I used sheets of stiff cardboard, faired
the curves, and cut out patterns. I then traced the body
sections onto heavy brown paper that I could roll up
and take with me to Nova Scotia, Canada, where I have
an island workshop.
To record the sheerline and keel, I stretched piano
wire from stem to stern, tensioned by suspending a
concrete block at each end, and used a plumb bob to
record vertical measurements at each station. SUMMER
HAZEs current owner, John Watt, very kindly gave me
the original rudder, tiller, and anything else from the
old boat that I could use in the new one.
O
ne thing that baffled me about the gigs was
their extraordinary longevity. Ralph suggested
I pay a visit to Frank Peters, then 86, the last
of the gig-building Peters family, who was living at St.
Mawes, just across from Falmouth. Franks recollec-
tions seemed to span several centuries and he began
every story with It was during one of them continental
wars. I was never quite sure if we were talking Napo-
leon, post-Napoleon, or even earlier. I asked Frank how
36 WoodenBoat 250
SILVER THREAD 250-EdFinal.indd 36
JIMMY K ARLAN
it was that the oldest surviving gig, NEWQUAY, built in
1812 (now over 200 years old), far from being a museum
case, was actually still in (limited) use. This had puz-
zled me since the Cornish elm used for planking is not
considered durableespecially around the water.
Frank described the careful selection of trees: They
never took one that was more than half grown and
then chained the logs together and left them in the
creek mud, where the tides do come and go. After five
or six years, the wood was pickled with salt, and worms
had eaten off most of the sapwood. The logs were then
hauled out, sawn to whatever thickness was required,
and finished with scrapers.
Other factors that helped preserve the gigs were
the cold salt water off the Cornish coast and the fact
that the boats were kept in stone boathouses down
by the shorenot left out in the rain and sun. Since
they were too lightly built to be dragged over the rocky
shores, they had to be picked up and carried by their
seven-man crews. In stormy weather, they could only be
launched in the lee of the islanda considerable carry
for an 800-lb boat. Painting the bilges with pine tara
mild antisepticalso helped preserve the wood. Our
own SUMMER HAZE was certainly planked in elm, but
whether it was salted or not I cannot tell.
Smuggling was a major occupation on the Scilly
Isles, and Frank had many stories of gigs evading the
revenue cutters. In a light breeze they were known to
row straight upwind while the cutter, having to tack,
was soon left far behind. So what happened when they
were caught? I asked.
Oh, they just cut the gig in half with a handsaw
that put them out of business.
Thats not so bad for the boat building business, I
thought. I did remember seeing a chicken house on St.
Marys roofed with half a gigone of the unlucky ones,
I assumed.
3/23/16 6:36 PM
 B
ack in Nova Scotia, I duplicated the construction
of the original SUMMER HAZE in building her
replacement, SILVER THREAD, because histori-
cal reconstructions lose authenticity when details are
fudged. Since the original boat was four time zones
to the east of my workshop, I had to rely on what Id
brought with mefield notes, patterns, and photo-
graphs. I was also up against unfamiliar detailsa
rabbeted keel, reverse curves in the garboard, and
a centerboard trunk set directly on the keel. I had a
local mill supply 18' lengths of clear, white pine barely
air-dry, which I had planed to 38". Having full-length
planking stock saved considerable time because I could
simply wrap the new plank around the boat and mark
it directly from the one already in place. This is one of
the beauties of lapstrake construction: Spiling to deter-
mine the plank shapes is virtually eliminated.
I prefer to build boats right-side up so I can use bat-
tens to see how the run of the planks will look. Thats
an impossible job with the boat upside down. With the
boat set up this way, however, I found fitting garboards
to a long, straight keel rabbet, bedding, and then nail-
ing them in place to be an awkward job. The bronze
nails have to be driven at exactly the right angle so they
dont split the plank or break out through the keel tim-
ber. I soon found it was a job for a younger man, so
I enlisted the help of a local boatbuilder, Kevin Wam-
bach. Kevin also came back a few weeks later with his
steamer and his wife, and the three of us framed the
whole boat in only half a day.
SUMMER HAZEs planking is fastened with rivets
square-sectioned copper nails, with diamond-shaped
roves cut out of sheet copper. Driven into hardwood,
these same nails will cripple unless you drill pilot
holeswhich reduces their holding power. To remedy
this, nails were ragged, or barbed like a fishhook. Ive
tried this and its very effectivebut time-consuming,
so I opted for the modern equivalent: bronze ring-
shank nails.
JIMMY K ARLAN
The narrow channel between Bells Island and Wolfs, known
as The Gut, provides secure mooring for the local fishing
fleet. SILVER THREAD is easy to row through such narrow
entrances, and has three rowing stations to accommodate a
variety of loads.
SILVER THREAD 250-EdFinal.indd 37
For edge-joining the boards that make up a rudder
or a wooden centerboard, bronze drift pins were typi-
cally driven into undersized holes and the joint pulled
together with clamps; any remaining gaps were filled
with seam compound. SUMMER HAZEs original rud-
der was put together in this fashion and has lasted well
over a hundred years.
I used pine tar (imported from Norway at consider-
able expense) on the interior below the risers. This is
easily renewed from time to time with no sanding or
surface preparation. It has a pleasant shippy smell
and is still used by farriers.
As soon as the hull was planked I sent copies of the
patterns, notes, and photos to a colleague, Bill Nielsen,
in Oregon. Bill lofted the boat, faired the lines, and
produced four sheets of 30" 40" plans. These are very
detailed and show full-sized mold and rudder patterns,
plank widths, fastenings, and such. It would have been
more logical to loft the boat before building it, but that
would have delayed the project by at least a year.
I
ts been was well over 60 years since I sailed SUM-
MER HAZE , so I had a lot to learnand relearn
after launching SILVER THREAD. I had forgot-
ten how comfortably this boat sails herself on a broad
reacha great convenience when hand-lining for her-
ring or mackerel in the open sea. Thanks to the miz-
zen, there is never any hesitation in coming about, and
jibing with a boomless mainsail is not life-threatening.
Picking up a mooring or coming into a dock under sail
is more manageable with only the mizzen set.
The only changes I made in the rigging were to put
a double block on the mainsheet and run it through a
traveler attached to the stern quarter knees. This addi-
tional purchase made it easier for young people (and
the elderly) to handle the large mainsail and made
both sails self-trimming which is a boon to the single-
handed sailor. I also put a downhaul on the tack for
tensioning the luff of the mainsail.
Ive just turned 86, so its clear that my early encoun-
ter with SUMMER HAZE marked the beginning of an
80-year involvement with wooden boats. Building a rep-
lica of her is a rewarding project available to anyone with
the interest, woodworking skills, and a modest work-
shop. Along with the pleasure of owning a boat youve
built yourself, youll find a great satisfaction in build-
ing something with a pedigreea historygoing back
long before living memory. Keeping these traditions
alive is a compelling reason to continue building small
boatsand building them in wood.
Simon Wattss first attempt at building a lapstrake boat was such a
fiasco that he named it GOOD GRIEF and fed it into the workshop
stove. That was many years ago. He eventually mastered the craft,
and then took to the road pioneering the concept of itinerant instruc-
tion, teaching six-day classes in lapstrake boatbuilding around the
United States and Canada.
Plans and building instructions for SILVER THREAD are available
from The WoodenBoat Store (www.woodenboatstore.com) or on
disc from simonwattswoodworking.com. Several boats are under
construction in the United States and Canada, and at least one,
planked in 14" plywood, is already sailing in Australia.
May/June 2016 37
3/23/16 6:36 PM
 Compression Failure
by Richard Jagels
I
recently needed a new pair of
8' 6" oars. A nearby marine supply
store only had 6- and 7-footers,
and a single 8' oarideal for rowing
in circles. Except for very expensive
custom-made oars, it appeared my
only solution was to make my own.
I have a copy of R.D. Pete Cullers
book, Boats, Oars and Rowing (Inter-
national Marine, Camden, Maine,
1978), and have read it often; but
until now I had not attempted
making my own oars.
So I headed off to the local big-
box store to hunt up some relatively
clear spruce. In the past they have
had some pieces that were nearly
knot-free and would have met my
requirementsbut not this time.
After pawing through the pile for
about ten minutes, I happened to
turn around and spotted, on the
rack behind me, a small load of
western red cedar. A short search
yielded some very nice clear stock.
Since the oars would only be needed
for occasional use in a motor-
powered boat, I liked the idea of
using cedar to reduce weight.
As I pulled out boards for assess-
ment, I noticed one 24 that had
irregular white streaks running
perpendicular to the grain (labeled
A in the photo). Within a few seconds,
I realized I was seeing something that
I had learned about as a student many
years ago and had seen in textbook
photos but had never encountered
in person.
Longtime readers may recall
that I discussed compression fail-
ure in a column titled, Spruce for
Spars in 1994 (WB No. 118). That
writeup was in response to a letter
from a spar builder who was find-
ing that some of the Sitka spruce
he was getting was quite brash.
As he described it: I could take a
long scrap, say 1" 1", and break it
38 WoodenBoat 250
WoodTech250-AdFInal.indd 38
between my thumbs with a snap,
breaking it cleanly across the grain,
almost as if it had been cut with a
chop saw.
This is an apt description of brash
wood, a defect much feared by those
who make spars. As I noted in that
column, brashness in conifers can
be caused by incipient decay or
by compression wood, a reaction
wood that forms on the underside
of leaning conifers. But in tall west-
ern conifers, another defect known
as compression failure can occur
in living treesespecially in trees
stressed by snow and wind loads.
Both of these stresses are greater in
trees growing at relatively high alti-
tudes. As coastal populations of Sitka
spruce and western cedars are har-
vested out, lumber companies seek
trees farther inland, in mountainous
areashence compression failure
becomes a more common defect.
The end tag on the western red
cedar 24 and the 16 boards I pur-
chased read Idaho Forest Group. failurebut we would be wrong in
Idaho seemed to be much farther
east than western red cedar is nor-
mally found, but a check of my tree
books revealed that a band of this
cedar grows along the western side
of the Rocky Mountains, which is
relatively wet, from central British
Compression failure
in western red cedar
is seen as ragged
white lines across
the board at A
and crushed fibers
at B. The board
at C, from the
outer portion of
the stem, is free of
compression failure.
Columbia south into the northern
tip of Idaho.
In 1805, the Lewis and Clark
Expedition, after crossing the con-
tinental divide in what we now call
northern Idaho, needed a tree from
which to build boats in order to float
downstream to the Pacific. With
fire, mallet, and crude chisel, they
fashioned four large pirogues and
a smaller one. And on the morning
of October 7, the fateful and illus-
trious band set out upon the last
stage of the outward journey, down-
stream to the Pacific, borne on
the great boles of the Giant Canoe
Cedar, which lumbermen today call
Western Red Cedar (D.C. Peattie,
1953, A Natural History of Western
Trees, Houghton Mifflin, Boston).
Fortunately for American history,
Lewis and Clarks cedar boats
survived the journey to the Pacific
Ocean. We might be tempted to sur-
mise that they were lucky in choosing
trees that were free of compression
this conjecture. Compression fail-
ure occurs mostly in wood near the
center of the tree. Lewis and Clark
removed this central wood as they
hollowed out their dugout canoes.
Why is compression failure mostly
confined to the central portion of
3/21/16 12:01 PM
 the bole? To answer this we need to
understand how trees develop inter-
nal stresses as they grow. As a sap-
ling, the main stem develops mostly
compression stress as the crown
enlarges. Eventually, equilibrium is
reached and subsequent wood laid
down develops tensile stress. Under
heavy snow loading, the compres-
sion stresses in the central part of
the stem can be converted to strain,
preventive measure boatbuilders
can take is to use wood from the
outer portion of a tree, which has
more flattened growth rings, for sit-
uations in which bending strength is
most criticalbut avoiding sapwood
when decay resistance is desired.
Dr. Richard Jagels is an emeritus
professor of forest biology at the Uni-
versity of Maine, Orono. Please send
correspondence to Dr. Jagels by mail
to the care of WoodenBoat, or via
e-mail to Senior Editor Tom Jackson,
tom@woodenboat.com.

BOATERS STORE
often as localized deformation seen TM

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as compression failure.
In the accompanying photo, a
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Typographical errors are unintentional and subject to correction.

May/June 2016 39

WoodTech250-AdFInal.indd 39 3/21/16 12:01 PM

 SAGAs
Enduring
Legacy
The 6-Meter
that launched
the International

CREDIT TK
One-Design class
Hed
deck
Text and photographs by xx
Photographs by xx
by Neil Rabinowitz

40 WoodenBoat 250

SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 40 3/23/16 4:07 PM

 I n 1935, the legendary yachtsman Cornelius Shields
of Larchmont, New York, traveled to Bermuda to
race in the AMORITA Cupa team-racing event
between Bermudian and Long Island Sound sailors.
For about a decade, that trophy was contested in two
nearly identical one-designs sharing the same course:
The C.D. Mowerdesigned Sound Interclubs (see WB
No. 242) and the W. Starling Burgessdesigned Ber-
muda One-Designs. Shields, who had been instrumen-
tal in the development of the Sound Interclubs and
owned one of them, was often heard to say that if he
were going to be beaten on the water, he wanted it to
be by a better sailor, not by a designer. He was a true
believer in the concept of identical boats on the race
courseor one-designs.
The Sound Interclubs had been launched in a single
batch of boats by Henry B. Nevins in 1926, and they
attracted some of Long Island Sounds best sailors. By
1935, Shields was seeking a replacement design that
would hold together the competitive group that had
coalesced around this design. Inspiration came to him
on that trip to Bermuda, when he saw a stunning new
Facing pageThe 376 International 6-Meter-class sloop SAGA, designed by Bjarne Aas and launched in 1935, inspired the
creation of the International One Design (IOD) the following year. AboveSAGA went on to a storied career, and has been
owned since 1991 by Kimo Mackey (inset)first in partnership, and later on his own. Mackey sails the boat from Bainbridge
Island, Washington.
SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 41
6-Meter-class sloop called SAGA , designed and built for
Keith and Eldon Trimingham, undergoing sea trials.
That first glimpse of this boat set him on an inexorable
path:
The minute I saw SAGA, I fell in love with her. I
thought she was the most beautiful boat Id ever seen.
I loved her shape, her sheer, her dainty transom, and
her long, straight, counter. All I could think of on
the way back to the States were the lines of that darned
boat. She literally haunted me.
That shape inspired Shields to commission the
Norwegian designer-builder Bjarne Aas, who had cre-
ated SAGA , to draw up the International One-Design
(IOD)a lighter, wider, shorter (33'), more lightly can-
vased version of SAGA . Aas had, in fact, been mulling
a smaller version of SAGA himself, and Shieldss enthu-
siasm motivated him to complete the design. Shields
and his brother, Paul, formed a six-person syndicate
of Long Island sailors, which purchased 25 boats to be
sold locally. The new design required only three crew
instead of a 6-Meters five, and cost less than half as
May/June 2016 41
3/23/16 3:40 PM

ELDON TRIMINGHAM COLLECTION
much as a 6-Meter. Aas turned out two IODs a month
for the next 12 months, and classes soon formed in New
York, Massachusetts, Maine, San Francisco, and Nor-
waynot to mention Bermuda, where the IOD became
the new boat for the AMORITA Cup.
The IOD remains popular to this day, and its story
has been well documented (see WB No. 231 for a review
of a book detailing the history of the class). But what
ever happened to SAGA , the alluring 6-Meter that
inspired it?
T
he 6-Meter was big in Norway in 1934. King
Olav himself raced nine of them over the years,
and in 1924 a Norwegian, Eugen Lunde, won
Olympic gold in the class. Bjarne Aass designs had had
a string of successes in Europe, and the Triminghams
purchased an existing boat of his design, VIKING, in
1930, which prompted Bermuda sailors to soon order
two more 6-Meters from him. But new American
designs by Olin Stephens and others were threatening,
so the Triminghams returned to Aas for something
special.
42 WoodenBoat 250
SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 42
Kenneth and Eldon Trimingham
commissioned SAGA for the
burgeoning 6-Meter fleet in Bermuda.
They sold the boat only two years
later, when British-American team
racing required that they sail a British-
built boat. Eldon later regretted selling
SAGA , considering her the best boat
he ever owned.
SAG A wa s to be no ordinar y
6-Meter. For starters, shed be
dry-sailedhauled between out-
ings on a local marine railway
and this required some special
considerations for her backbone
timbers if they werent to dry out
and shrink when the boat was out
of the water. Most 6-Meters of the
day were timbered in white oaka
durable choice, but a wood prone
to shrink and swell with wet-dry
cycles. SAGA , on the other hand,
has a keel, stem, and sternpost of
teak, which is much more stable.
By dry-sailing, the Triminghams
would maintain a clean, hard-
enamel bottom. Some observers
said that even the lead ballast was a
work of art; it was so sleekly shaped
that pundit-designer Uffa Fox said,
The casting might have been
molded from the body of a tuna.
The boats deck was of laid Sitka
spruce, and she was framed in
elm. The full-length hull planking,
edge-glued without butt joints, is of
old-growth Douglas-fir. The plank-
ing produced a hull so smooth-sided it shone, accord-
ing to Shields, like the side of a porcelain bathtub.
The rudder was also teak, as were the floor timbers,
and while most of the 6-Meters of the day had iron bolts
and drifts joining the backbone timbers, SAGAs were
of silicon-bronze. No expense was spared: She was built
to last.
SAGA scored three firsts and a third in her first
races in 1936, the Prince of Wales Cup and the first
King Edward VII Gold Cup, and in team racing she
scored two more firsts and a third. Known for her
heavy-weather performance, she competed in Ber-
muda for only two years, and then the Triminghams
sold her in 1938 to Johnston deForest, a Long Island
sailor, just before the hurricane of the century raked
Long Island and New England claiming hundreds of
lives, flooding cities, and destroying thousands of small
boats. SAGA survived, but as interest grew in the more
affordable IODs, deForest sold her to Myron Spaulding
of San Francisco, where she sailed for two years before
Ray Elliott, a 6-Meter enthusiast in Seattle, bought her.
Elliotts personal fleet would eventually grow to five
3/23/16 3:40 PM
WoodenBoatShow-250.indd 43 3/22/16 8:15 PM
 The 33 IOD class, while not among the largest one-design
fleets in the world, is certainly among the most influential. In
appearance, the design is a diminutive version of SAGAsa
few feet shorter, but proportionally beamier.

6-Meters, encouraging Seattle sailors to build their

local fleet to twelve boats. SAGA passed through two
more owners but stayed in the region; by 1966, however,
she lay neglected, ignobly chained to a wharf and sold
at a sheriffs auction for unpaid bills.
In 1968, Seattle sailor Bill Buursma restored her to
COURTESY OFIODWORLD CLASS ASSOCIATION

racing condition, and she again rose to the top of the

veteran fleet, finishing seventh out of twenty in Seattles
1973 6-Meter Worlds, in which five boats were mod-
ern designs. In 1976, Buursma built another 6-Meter,
FRENZY, designed by Britton Chance, and sold SAGA
to Canadian sailor Paul Longridge, who raced her out
of the Royal Victoria (British Columbia) Yacht Club
which along with Vancouver and Seattle combined to
form the largest and most competitive 6-Meter fleets
in North America. SAGA kept winning races, and in
1978 finished first against a fleet of pre-1960 6-Meters.
In 1979, she placed 16th out of 25 boats in the World

Strengthening SAGAs Frames by Eric Jespersen

E very pound that can be saved in a boats struc-

ture is a pound that can be integrated into the
lead ballast, which in turn means better stability and
tight curves of the wineglass-shaped sections com-
mon to 6-Meters. But these small-sectioned frames
werent big enough to accommodate the bolts: The
windward performance. The downside of reducing bolt holes took away too much material from the
a structures weight is that the safety margins in the frames. The holes were also so close to the edges of
most highly loaded areas of the hull are also reduced. the floors that the resulting connections were poor.
Though strong enough when new, these areas can be Small, angled, metal brackets helped hold the floors
dangerously weakened over time by water absorption to the few planks they touched, but with 6,000 lbs of
and the deterioration of wood and metal. The mast- ballast pulling down, the connection was tenuous. As
step and the bilge near the ballast keel are two areas a result, SAGA had broken frame heels.
where loading and age can conspire to render a boat In 2002, we repaired these frames by cutting away
too weak to sail. their bottom portions and scarf-joining new frame
SAGA was well built, with elm frames and teak heels made of laminated white oak to the remain-
floors and backbone. But these floors had to be bolted ing frames. We chose to not replace them entirely,
to both the tiny frames and the keelson. This was the since the breaks were all in the lower 30 percent of
core of SAGAs prob- the length of each frame, and the rest of each frame
lem: The elm frames was in good condition. We increased the sided and
are small, to allow molded dimensions of the new heels, but tapered
them to bend to the them to match the existing frames at the scarf joint.
We chiseled out the frame pockets in the keelson
to fit the new dimensions of the heels; this had the
SAGAs frames were added benefit of cleaning up the pockets by cutting
small in section in them back to fresh wood.
order to accommodate We glued the scarfs with epoxy, and bedded the
a tight reverse curve heels in the pockets with polysulfide. Bronze bolts of
at their heels. Eric increased size now hold the frames and floorsand
Jespersen repaired we reused the metal brackets. The frames were bed-
this age-weakened ded to the planking with Sikaflex.
area by scarfing on Its been 14 years since we made these repairs, and
new heels of greater theyve proven their longevity: SAGA is substantially
dimension, and stronger than when launched, with the cross sections
tapering them to meet of the frames at their sharpest turns double their
the original frames. original dimensions.

44 WoodenBoat 250

SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 44 3/23/16 3:40 PM

 Small Boats
MONTHLY
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www.SmallBoatsMonthly.com

An online-only magazine about small

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Features a range of designs for oar,
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WB259-Pg45Fracts.indd 45 3/22/16 2:35 PM


Championship, and was runner-up to the highest-placing
Senior Six, YLLIAM VIII, a Sparkman & Stephens
design. In the 1983 World Cup in Newport Harbor, Cal-
ifornia, she held her own in rough conditions against
the latest designs.
It was at that 1983 World Cup event that Kimo
Mackey, in true Cornelius Shields fashion, emerged
from the clubhouse and encountered SAGA in gleaming
condition. He was thunderstruck. My jaw went slack,
he recalls. She was gorgeous. I had been searching for
ten years [for a 6-Meter] and knew it right then I had to
have that boat.
M
ackey was no stranger to 6-Meters. In 1974,
he and a group of college buddies had
had a grand adventure in Athens, Greece,
aboard an old 6-Meter named CRESTA . Five months
earlier, they had taken a semester off from college
to sail the Mediterranean. The group had pooled
$6,000 from their combined savings to cobble
together a cruising yacht and spend a term gunk-
holing the Cte dAzur, frequenting harbor cafs
and dreaming of Gina Lollobrigida.
Mackey, then a 21-year-old from the San Francisco
Bay Area, had sailed Sunfish and once hopped on a
46 WoodenBoat 250
SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 46
SAGAs simple layout includes separate cockpits
for the helmsman and headsail trimmers, and
a trench in the sole between them for easy
passage. InsetCustom bronze fabrications
spread the chainplate load over two oversized
frames, and bronze hanging knees help support
the deck.
Transpac delivery, but that was it for his sail-
ing experience. However, hed devoured
every book he could find on yacht design,
and was the most knowledgeable of his adven-
turer friends. So he was sent ahead to scour
the docks of Europe for a boat.
Six-Meters were never part of the plan,
Mackey said. I was sent to find a boat
because I read the most, but I was thinking a
Lapworth or 40' Cheoy Lee we could sleep on
and sell before we went back to school. He
bummed about the docks with his Euro-Pass,
beginning in the Netherlands, and soon real-
ized he lacked purchasing power. Anxious to
begin voyaging, his friends clamored to know
the plan when Mackey spotted a 1932 Camper
& Nicholson 6-Meter in Palma, Majorca. It
had been converted into a short-hop cruiser,
with a tiny cabin, and it needed work, but it
was within their budget. He jumped at the
chance and called the boys. The next thing
he knew they were setting sail from Palma to
a cluster of Greek islands.
That passage from Palma to the islands
nudging the Turkish border was one of the
longest ever on a 6-Meter, Mackey said. But
we were full of ourselves, having studied our
Greek classics. We were oblivious to the his-
tory of the class. Still, cramped as we were, we fell in
love with that 6.
For five months, they sailed throughout the Medi-
terranean, slipping in and out of harbors, enjoying the
good life, sleeping on deck and below. Then, with the
money all but gone and school about to begin, it was
time to go home. They stuck a sign in the rigging and
put the boat up for sale. Then Turkey invaded Cyprus.
A coup dtat ensued, and a junta sparked fears of war.
The Greek sailing odyssey became a war epic.
It was war. People got hurt, Mackey recalls. No one
was buying sailboats. We ran out of cash and needed
our money out of the boat. The government wouldnt
let us sail out of the country or even off the dock. The
junta shut down all marine traffic, and the harbor-
master threatened to shoot us out of the water if we
dared leave the slip.
Their situation was grim: They were broke and stuck
in a war zone when a wealthy Greek shipping magnate
nearby offered to purchase CRESTA , but he insisted on
seeing her under sail. Despite our pleas that we might
get shot, Mackey said, without seeing the boat sail he
said it was no deal.
Desperate, they crouched low on deck at 1 a.m., hop-
ing the Greek sentries they saw drunk nightly would be
3/23/16 3:40 PM
 Kimo Mackey, seen here at SAGAs helm, had a youthful adventure in a 6-Meter, and that experience cemented his love of the
class. He tracked SAGA for years before finally buying her.
sleeping it off. They slipped the boat free, and the heavy,
skinny hull glided halfway across the harbor. They
hoisted a blade jibjust enough to ghost alongand
threaded through a half-dozen patrol boats anchored
in the roadstead. Suddenly, a spotlight flooded CRESTA in
blinding white.
They hit the deck, expecting to get shot, when a sailor
shouted to them in Greek. Scared, Mackey shouted
back in his best local accent. The group could then
hear a quiet conversation, a faint response, and then
nothing. They passed through, their hearts racing. As
they left the harbor, Mackey said, The wind picked up
off the quarter, building following seas until we pegged
12 knots under headsail alone.
Passing Cape Sounion and the Temple of Poseidon,
being good students of the classics, they poured red
wine libations to the gods in celebration of freedom
and lifeand, with their escape, the upcoming sale of
CRESTA . We flew through the moonlight, recalled
Mackey. It was pure 6-Meter magic. It intoxicated me.
Mackey finished college and, having been seduced
by the rich history of yacht design, he plunged into
formal naval architecture studies and eventually
became an engineer specializing in sophisticated pro-
peller design and underwater repair on everything
from top-secret Navy vessels to commercial ships and
SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 47
cruise liners. He went on to sail a succession of
unsatisfying yacht designs, but the memory of his
6-Meter adventure lingered.
R
ecalling his encounter with SAGA in 1983, he said
she was a knockout. He offered Longridge
nearly twice what the boat was worth, and
while impressed with Mackeys devotion, Longridge
was not ready to sell. Mackey wouldnt let it go, but with
family health issues and business dealings demanding
his attention, he figured it just wasnt the right time
and dolefully made an alternative offer on another
6-Meter, MAYBE VII a Sparkman & Stephens design.
While this purchase was still under survey, Longridge
suddenly changed his mind and offered to sell SAGA to
Mackey. As badly as I wanted her, Mackey said, I felt
obligated to honor my deal in progress. It wouldnt have
been right.
Subsequently, he mentioned SAGA to a sailing
friend, Bjorn Sundt, and suggested Sundt take a look.
At that moment, Longridge was craving a more mod-
ern design, and Sundt ended up buying the boat. Sundt
later sold SAGA to Paul Stohlman. Mackey tracked each
of SAGAs sales since Newport Harbor, but upon close
investigation discovered shed been neglected by 1990.
With two partners, Mackey finally purchased SAGA
May/June 2016 47
3/23/16 3:40 PM

SAGA: A True Racer-Cruiser
S AGAs fir-over-plywood deck grew soft over time
as water found its way in and rotted the subdeck.
For years, Kimo Mackey retarded the deterioration
by keeping the boat under cover, but as the deck grew
softer, the day arrived in 2010 for a complete replace-
ment. This allowed the opportunity to customize the
boats deck layout.
Mackeys earlier 6-Meter, MAYBE VII, had the sig-
nature Sparkman & Stephens cockpit arrangement:
a small two-person cloverleaf cockpit aft for the
helmsman and tactician, and a three-person forward
cockpit for the sail trimmers. While it worked for rac-
ing, Mackey was intrigued by the 6-Meters of the Bal-
tic Sea, whose larger aft cockpits also accommodated
cruising. These Scandinavian boats had small two-
person cockpits forward, which were covered with
a skylight when cruising. The remaining three crew
occupied the aft cockpit; that third person in the
aft cockpit allowed for efficient tacking of the No. 1
genoa. Mackey combined the two concepts, creating
a hybrida large cloverleaf cockpit aft and a small
cockpit forward for the headsail trimmers. Theres
a removable skylight for the forward cockpit, which
creates a sheltered cruising cabin.
The ideal racing arrangement prioritizes sail
handling. One of the most difficult maneuvers in
a 6-Meter is tacking the No. 1 genoa in a strong
breeze. In the Baltic layout, the crewmen stand and
brace themselves against the coaming while sheet-
ing. Mackeys configuration allows the forward crew,
between maneuvers, to step into a fore-and-aft trench
joining the two cockpits, and even to sit at times to
lower their weight. This arrangement also allows the
boom to clear their heads.
48 WoodenBoat 250
SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 48
A deck replacement
in 2010 provided
the opportunity
to rethink SAGAa
layout. Long bench
seats in the aft
cockpit fold down
when sail handling
is the priority, but
are quickly deployed
when comfort is
desired. A removable
skylight shelters the
forward cockpit for
cruising.
The well-rounded forward cockpit allows the jib
tailer to lean hard against the coaming while pull-
ing on the sheet. The jib trimmer in the aft cockpit
grinds the winch out of the way of the tailer, while
facing forward.
For racing, the running backstays are led aft and
are tensioned using the No. 2 winches. For cruis-
ing, the runners are led forward and tensioned with
the No. 3 winches; in this configuration the run-
ners essentially become part of the standing rigging
because they dont interfere with the mainsail while
sailing upwind.
The mainsheet is double-ended to create a contin-
uous loop which eliminates running out of sheet dur-
ing a sudden bear-away. There are openings in the
sole for the tail ends of the headsail sheets as well as
the runners; the mainsheet tail leads underneath the
sole into a mesh hamper to prevent it from falling
into the bilge.
SAGAs cockpits convert to cruising mode by first
flipping down the aft cockpits long bench seats to
allow seating for four people. The skylight, stored in
the forepeak when racing, is secured over the forward
cockpit and the forepeak cushions are placed on an
elevated sole on either side of the forward cockpit.
The deep trench sole allows passage between the
two cockpits, but is narrow enough to not constrict
the port and starboard berths.
A Tiny Tot woodstove next to the mast keeps things
cozy below. A quick-release collapsible dodger over
the aft cockpit provides additional shelter; lowering
it allows an unobstructed view for the helmsman.
NR
3/23/16 3:40 PM
 When racing, Mackeys curatorial connection gets the best of him, and he must call in a skipper who will race by
the numbers.
in 1991. They raced her for a decade, winning the King
Olav Cup in 2001 and the Lipton Cup in 2002, and
finishing third in the 2006 North Americans. Mackey
eventually bought out his partners and began SAGAs
restoration.
She was in fine shape due to the quality materials
throughout her backbone, Mackey said, and because
racing inspired her owners to keep a constant level of
maintenance. To this day, her teak backbone timbers
remain in pristine shape. Her Sitka spruce deck lasted
for nearly 50 years until the 1980s, when it was replaced
with a plywood subdeck overlaid with Douglas-fir plank-
ing. Her hull planking remains in near-original condi-
tion. Later, following a survey, Mackey began thinking
that the frames were too light for such a heavy keel in
the tight garboard tuck, so he hired Eric Jespersen of
Sidney, British Columbia, to address this issue (see side-
bar, page 44).
SAGA now lives in Port Madison, Bainbridge Island,
Washington, surrounded by generations of 6-Meters
in various states of repair. And Mackey and his crew,
thanks to a reconfiguring of the yachts deck, enjoy a
SAGA250-EdFINAL.indd 49
wonderfully ergonomic layout (see sidebar, page 48).
At times, when racing, Mackey has to surrender the
helm because he gets so wrapped up emotionally in the
state of the boat and shifts from SAGAs helmsman to
her curator. Sometimes his crew just needs a skipper.
Thats when I bring some emotionally cut-off skipper
to race her by the numbers, without the connection I
bring to the task, Mackey said.
But once in a while, alone on the helm and with one
quiet and distant crewmember enjoying the peaceful
sunset off Bainbridge Island, Mackey drifts off to that
heart-stopping moonlit reach in Greece and realizes
that, with SAGA , the magic is never far below the
surface of his daily life.
NeilRabinowitzis a Bainbridge Island, Washington-based photog-
rapher and writer specializing in marine, adventure, sports, travel,
and lifestyle. He has covered such diverse subjects as the AMERICAs
Cup, the Olympics, the Indianapolis 500, river rafting in Chile,
superyachts in Tahiti, fly-fishing in New Zealand, and grizzlies in
the Alaska wilderness. View his work atneilrabinowitz.com.
May/June 2016 49
3/23/16 3:40 PM
 Electric Auxiliary for a Sailboat
With solar recharge, off-the-grid cruising is in range
by Jonathan Taggart

W
hat we enjoy most about rec-
reational sailing is just that
sailing. We are thrilled if we
can sail all day in NEREID, our 1962
Bermuda 30 ketch, without ever need-
ing to use the engine. We like to leave
our mooring under sail and return to it

JONATHAN TAGGART
the same way. For my own part, I am a
traditionalist but a pragmatic one: For
example, I appreciate the sweet, clean
sheerline of an older wooden boat like
ours, but I did not hesitate to reinstall
stanchions and lifelines for the sake of Solar panels have improved a lot during the years the author has sailed his
safety. In the same way, I would rather Bermuda 30. The thin, flexible panel on the companionway sliding hatch can be
sail if I can, but I will motor if I have to. walked on and is rated at 50W, while an earlier panel, visible on the coach roof
For our boat, motoring meant start- and predating the authors electric motor installation, is stiff, thick and fragile
ing up the gasoline-powered engine. and is rated at 33W.
I believe the Atomic Four engine was
original to the construction of the boat,
a type often called a modified Herreshoff H-28, at the spending way too much time with our heads down in
Cheoy Lee boatyard in Hong Kong more than 50 years the bilge, uncomfortable, our hands in impossible posi-
ago. Like any old gas engine, the Atomic Four required tions, covered with grease, as we worked on carbure-
constant attention, service, and maintenance. That tors, fuel pumps, impellers, distributors, oil filters, or
was work I did myself, and maintaining the engine spark plugs, not to mention changing the oil regularly
often made me feel more like an on-the-water motor and going through the annual winterization and spring
mechanic than a sailor. I know Im not alone in this. recommissioning. I bought a sailboat so I could sail,
In the mooring basin, I often commiserated with one but I have become an engine mechanic, he once told
of our neighborsJohn Teller, who owns the lovely me. I knew exactly what he meant.
Murray Petersondesigned ketch WILD DUCKabout Despite all the maintenance, our engine was no lon-
ger dependable. We were never sure that it would start
on demand, especially in a pinch. We got into the habit
of starting it when sailing into a harbor or a tight spot
just to be sure it would be running if we really needed
it. We always had to keep in mind, of course, that even
if we wanted power quickly wed have to allow enough
time to run the bilge blower to clear any gasoline fumes
from the engine compartment. We would always start
the engine and warm it up before leaving the moor-
ing, and sometimes that was the only time it would run
during the day. The engine was noisy, and the exhaust

The electric motor and reduction gear are mounted

on a stainless-steel plate, which attaches to the
existing engine bedlogs by a simple athwartships
metal angle. Additional metal angles extend above
JAN ADKINS

to a cockpit sole deckbeam. The drivetrain is fitted with a

double-roller, chain-sprocket coupler for connection to the
propeller shaft.

50 WoodenBoat 250

Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal-Rev1.indd 50 3/24/16 3:09 PM


System Components
Propulsion
Electric motor: Motenergy ME 1115 12kW AC brushless motor
Reduction gear: Thunderstruck Motors 2:1 reduction gear
for 1 drive shaft
Motor controller: Sevcon Gen4, 450-amp with heat sink
Motor display: Sevcon Clearview, 3.5 color screen
(Above included in Thunderstruck Motors kit, which also
included key switch, throttle, wiring harness, and Tyco
Contactor solenoid.)
Propeller: three-bladed bronze, 13 diameter x 11 pitch
Electrical
Batteries: Main battery bank 48V with four in-series 12V
batteries to power the motor. (Connection to 48V bus has
a 250-amp fuse.) One 12V house battery supplied through
a 48V-to-12V converter isolated by two 250-amp fuses,
one on the 48V side and one on the 12V side. All batteries
are Firefly Oasis Group 31 carbon-foam absorbed glass
matt (AGM) batteries, 13.4 9.4 6.8, 74 lbs each.
The main bank and house battery connect to a two-bank
monitor.
Charging control: The charging bus, with output to a
48V bus, receives two input lines, each of which is
monitored by a Skyrc WM-010 watt-meter. One input
comes from the solar bus, the other from a Delta-Q
Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal.indd 51
NS
KI
AD
N
JA
Technologies QuiQ 1kW industrial battery charger that
receives input from a portable generator or from shore
power.
Generator: Portable Honda EU2000i, 2,000W, 46 lbs, 8.1
hours per gallon of gasoline
Solar Generation
Panelsall of flexible, anti-skid, walk-on variety, with the
exception of two previously installed 33W panelsare set
up in four zones:
Zone 1, aft deck and side decks: one Aurinco Compact
50W, 2.7 amp, 3318 1614 and two Aurinco Bluewater
25W, 1.35 amp, 4712 6 connect directly to one of four
solar Genasun GV-Boost 48V charge controllers with
8-amp input limits, then to solar bus
Zone 2, doghouse roof port and starboard: two pre-existing
Northwest Industries 33W, 1.6-amp panels, connect
directly to a charge controller, then to solar bus
Zone 3, companionway slider and coach roof: three
Solara Premium M-Series 50W, 2.36 amp panels, isolated
by blocking diodes, connect to charge controller, then to
solar bus
Zone 4, foredeck: Aurinco Compact 110 ST, 5.4 amp,
40 58 2612 18, 110W, connects through blocking
diode to charge controller, then to solar bus
May/June 2016 51
3/21/16 11:27 AM

JONATHAN TAGGART
fumes were annoying when running downwind. We also
disliked carrying 20 gallons of gasoline aboard the boat.
The engine had had almost every upgrade avail-
able from Moyer Marine Inc. (www.moyermarine.com),
which specializes in Atomic Four parts and service.
During the engines last year of operation, 2013, I had
to pull the spark plugs and pour Marvel Mystery Oil
into the cylinders to prevent the valves from sticking,
both before starting the engine and again right after
shutting down. I had done everything short of replac-
ing the sticking valves, which were a continual problem.
The next step would have been to remove the engine
for an overhaul that would have included replacing the
valves with Moyers new, more powerful valve springs.
If wed had the engine rebuilt, we could have just
continued business as usual. But for years I had been
exploring alternatives. I learned that I could gain
efficiency and enable the use of a larger propeller by
installing a reduction gear, which the original engine
did not have. But such a unit would have had to connect
aft of and lower than the engine block, and it wouldnt
fitwhich was probably the reason the boat didnt have
a reduction gear in the first place. A small, new diesel
engine would fit on the existing engine bedlogs, but
NEREIDs engine compartment didnt have enough
height under the cockpit sole to accommodate one.
Also, replacing the copper gasoline tank would have
meant tearing out, and then rebuilding, the entire gal-
ley. Meanwhile, I had been hearing about electric aux-
iliary power, and I began to think seriously about its
viability for this boat.
In talking with David Wyman, a naval architect
from Castine, Maine, who has professional experience
with electric auxiliaries and uses one for a sailboat of
his own, I learned that these motors not only can be
extremely powerful for short periods of time but also
can keep going for many hours if they are run at low
speeds. They are not suited to mariners who tend to
use their motors a lotwhich seems to be quite a few
52 WoodenBoat 250
Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal.indd 52
The electric motor and reduction gear, visible
at the top of the photo, are smaller and lighter
than the Atomic Four gasoline engine that they
replaced. Two of the three 12-volt batteries visible
here are part of the four-battery bank that supplies
the motor; the third is a house battery. Red cables
lead to the gray contactor, or solenoid, and at the
extreme upper right is the motor controller.
of them these days. But electric power can
provide exceptional backup propulsion for
those who prefer to sail most of the time and
rely on auxiliary power only when docking or
mooring, in emergencies, or when becalmed.
Another friend, Honda engine and system
mechanic Michael Start, recommended that
I ask Eugene Story, an engineer with Maine
Electric Boats (www.maineelectric boats.
com), about the possibilities. Gene convinced
me that a 12-kW electric motor would be per-
fectly suited to our boat and the way we sail.
The prospect of electric power raised an
important secondary consideration for us: We keep
our boat at a mooring, not at a marina, so we have no
regular, convenient access to shore power. Plus, when
we cruise, we prefer to steer clear of the civilization of
marinas and docks. If electric power was going to work
for us, we would want to power the battery bank with
solar panels mounted on the boat. For advice on solar
regeneration, Gene directed me to Bruce Schwab of Ocean
Energy Planet (www.bruceschwab.com), who helped me
to develop an array of panels, supplementing two I
already had on the doghouse roof. The types he recom-
mended are flexible, so they can conform to the camber
of the deck and coach roof. At the same time, they have
slip-resistant surfaces and can be walked on, so they
dont interfere with sail-handling and ordinary life
aboard. All together, the panels would be rated to
produce 416 watts.
They would be
connected to the
battery bank via a
charging bus, which
would also have a
The original electrical
panel was repurposed
to include a battery
monitor (upper right),
solar panel monitor
(middle right), charger
monitor (lower right),
and updated circuits.
Below the main
battery switches
JONATHAN TAGGART
is one of the solar
charge controllers.
The motor display
is mounted near the
companionway.
3/21/16 11:27 AM
 The 9 propeller was replaced with one having a 13
diameter and 11 pitch better suited to the electric auxiliary.
second input line to allow connection to shore power
when available or to a Honda 2000i gasoline-powered
portable generator when necessary. Meters for both incom-
ing power sources would track watts, amps, amp-hours,
and much more.
I concluded that installing an electric auxiliary
with solar regeneration would be practical for us. So I
jumped in. The first project was to remove the Atomic
Four, and as I did so I quickly realized that Id be get-
ting rid of more than just the engine. Out came all of
the systems that supported it, including through-hull
fittings, the freshwater cooling system, gas and oil fil-
ters, the water-cooled exhaust, the bilge blower, wiring,
and a large assortment of fuses. I hadnt considered all
of the stuff I wasnt going to need to carry, including
oil, antifreeze, Marvel Mystery Oil, spark plugs, a spare
fuel pump, belts, and service manuals.
We werent completely freed from gasolinewe
keep a small amount of fuel in the generator, which
stows in the lazarette and operates in the cockpit when
needed. I left the boats old fuel tank in place rather
than tear apart the galley to remove it, but after remov-
ing the Atomic Four I took advantage of the access in
the empty engine compartment to sister a few frames.
Based on recommendations from Gene Story,
I ordered a 48-volt motor kit from Thunderstruck
Motors, which included the 12-kW motor with a 2:1
reduction gear, controller, controller heat sink, display,
throttle, wiring harness, switch key, contactor, and
battery charger, all of which I installed myself.
I also installed nine solar panels divided into four
zones, each regulated by a charge controller with a
maximum input of 8 amps at the solar panels output
of 20 volts. The panels produce an average of 20 amp-
hours per day at 48 volts, but on a really good day might
produce as much as 50 amp-hours, or almost half the
capacity of the batteries. A potential problem with mul-
tiple solar panels, especially when portions of them
Regeneration while sailing
R egeneration of electricity while sailingvia
the propellers natural rotation in the flow of
wateris one of the power generation possibili-
ties with a system such as ours. Unfortunately, as I
learned from Eugene Story at Maine Electric Boats,
this type of regeneration would not be very likely
with my boat. He pointed out two limiting factors:
Hull speed and propeller size. Increasing the hull
speed of a displacement boat is nearly impossible,
and I wasnt willing to start hacking away at the teak
sternpost and rudder to permit a propeller of the
size required for that purpose.
You can imagine our surprise, however, when
we were sailing near hull speed of 6.5 knots for the
first time after installing the electric auxiliary and
Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal.indd 53
JONATHAN TAGGART
can be shaded by rigging, is hot-spotting. This occurs
when one panel in a group is in sunlight and the others
in shade. To prevent this, blocking diodes are installed
at each panel to prevent power generated by one panel
from flowing into another instead of to the batteries.
Panels of over 75 watts require blocking diodes, and
some of my panels came with them. The diodes cause
a loss of about 0.5 volt per panel. Individual panels
connected directly to a solar charge controller dont
need diodes because the charge controller serves that
function. Ideally, the panels supplying a single charge
controller should all be about the same wattage and
efficiency, and the wires connecting them should all be
of equal length and wire size. To reduce line loss,
the wire gauge needs to be increased with the length
of the wire runs.
I chose to use five 12-volt batteries. Four of these
are connected in series to create a 48-volt bank to run
the electric motor. The fifth one is the 12-volt house
battery, which is connected to the existing house elec-
trical panel and is recharged from the 48-volt bank
through a 12-volt converter. This arrangement ensures
that the house battery always carries a full charge and
is the last battery to die if power is being drained. All
we started to hear the gentle mechanical sound of
the propeller turning the motor. I would have dived
down into the bilge right then with a voltmeter to
confirm that I was creating some electricity, but I
was too busy sailing. Later, I did find such an oppor-
tunitybut then I realized I didnt have a certain
way to separate out the amperage contributed by
the solar panels from that possibly contributed
by the propeller.
Were not going to count on sailing as a source of
regeneration, but we may occasionally get a free amp
or two out of it. A boat that sails a couple of knots
faster than mine, or one that could handle a larger
propeller, could start considering regeneration as a
viable contributing power source. JT
May/June 2016 53
3/21/16 11:27 AM
 DAVID W YMAN/JONATHAN TAGGART
Naval architect David Wyman of Castine, Maine, estimated the performance of the conversion from gasoline to electric power.
On each of these graphs, the green line represents Wymans calculations, and the red line shows data recorded by the author
in real-world use. The left-hand graph charts boat speed versus horsepower and generally shows that the more energy used,
the greater the speed available. The right-hand graph shows the distance attainable compared to the discharge rate of the
batteries. As in all battery-powered electric motor installations, the lower the speed, the greater the boats range.

54 WoodenBoat 250

Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal.indd 54 3/21/16 11:27 AM

 five are Firefly Oasis carbon-foam absorbent glass mat
(AGM) batteries. I considered lithium-ion batteries, but
decided against them based not only on their cost but
also on the complicated and expensive battery man-
agement system needed to prevent overheating and its
associated fire hazard. These AGM batteries promise a
long life, deep discharge without loss of performance,
resistance to sulfur buildup, and fast bulk charging.
If they live up to the claims, theyll prove to be worth
their cost.
I chose Fireflys Group 31 batteries because at 74 after NEREID was relaunched for the 2015 season with
lbs each they are the largest that can be reasonably han-
dled manually by one person. Larger batteries would
also have been difficult to fit into the existing engine
compartment, where I was able to fit two of the four
batteries in the bank for the motor and also the single
house battery. These three batteries were placed so that
they would not block access to the through-hull shut-off
valves for the cockpit scuppers. The other two batteries
fit on their sides at a 45-degree angle under the laza-
rette, one on each side.
I installed the various systems myself. The costs of
the components came to a total of about $13,000. Of
that, $5,064 was for the motor kit; $1,681 for the bat-
teries; $4,225 for the seven solar panels; $1,075 for the
four charge controllers; $291 for a battery monitor and
two watt meters; $168 for a 48-volt to 12-volt converter;
and about $500 for miscellaneous wire, connectors,
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Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal.indd 55
fuses, battery boxes, and so on. My deck was originally
built of plywood sheathed with fiberglass set in epoxy;
it was solid but showing its age, so before installing the
solar panels I coated it with Tuff Coat ($726), a flex-
ible marine nonskid deck coating, before installing the
solar panels. I also replaced the 9", three-bladed pro-
peller with a new 13" one best suited for the new motor
($571). The generator, which I already had, now costs
$999.
From the very first moment I worked the throttle
her new auxiliary, I realized that her new motor deliv-
ered way more power than we had ever had before. Elec-
tric motors have the ability to deliver full torque at low
speeds, and they can generate three times their rated
output for short bursts. As we put the boat through
sea trials, it became clear that the electric motor was
going to be an excellent fit for the way we like to sail. We
found during our first season that the solar panels were
able to keep the batteries at full charge most of the
time. When the motor is running, I can hear the shaft
turning on its bearings and feel it vibrating through the
hull. I can hear the chuckle of water along the hull and
a vigorous prop wash at high RPMs, and I can also hear
conversations. I am beginning to get a feeling for how
the mechanical sounds relate to the RPM, boat speed,
and amp usage. The motor is not silentbut it is very
quiet.
Photo by Steve Stone
May/June 2016 55
3/21/16 11:27 AM
 In ideal conditions, the solar panels would supply
420 watts of electricity, with all of the panels in full
sunlight at exactly the right angle. At that rate, they
would charge our batteries to their 110-amp-hour
capacity in 14 hours. Allowing for line loss, blocking
diodes, and less-than-ideal efficiency, maybe 60 per-
cent of that charge could actually be attained in the
same amount of time. But in reality, the panels are
mounted on deck at less-than-ideal angles and are
partially shaded by rigging, sails, and the mast, and
people sometimes inadvertently set food, drinks, life
jackets, or clothing on them. So, what recharge rate
do we actually achieve? On an average sunny midday,
I recorded readings of 1.5 to 1.8 amps charging per
hour. When all the stars are aligned, we get 3.2 amps.
I estimate the average at 1.65 amps for 12 hours in
Maine, although we might get more time during the
longest days of summer. In these real-world condi-
tions, the solar contribution averaged a gain of about
20 amp-hours per day. This means that going from a
dead battery to a fully charged battery would take five
days of average solar gain. For weekend sailing, this
means that even if the batteries were flat on Sunday,
we could almost guarantee that they would be fully
charged by the following Friday.
With electric power, the life of the charge depends
entirely on how the motor is used. We ran some tests
going with and against the current and averaging the
42nd Annual Wooden Boat Show
Beaufort, North Carolina
North Carolina Maritime Museum 315 Front Street, Beaufort, NC 28516
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56 WoodenBoat 250
Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal-Rev1.indd 56
results to see what the motor would give us for boat
speed at various amps. Here are our findings:
Amps Knots
2 1.6
3 1.9
6 2.5
14 3.5
45 4.8
Stated another way, this means that with fully charged
batteries we could motor at 5 knots for about two hours,
covering about 10 nautical miles. Or, we could hold
our speed down to 1.6 knots and use the motor for
55 hours, covering 88 nautical miles. Clearly, low and
slow is the best approach to getting the most distance
out of one battery charge (see graph on page 54). At
low speed, we can run much longer and farther. Plus,
this assumes that there is no wind at allbut if there
were wind, wed be sailing. In light winds, weve found
that motorsailing at 1.6 knots increases the apparent
wind, allowing the boat to point higher to weather and
increasing the sailing speed with only minimal power
consumption.
Power management may become more of an issue
when cruising for weeks at a time. The generator,
charging at 22 amps, takes about four-and-a-half hours
to pack in a full charge. With its one tank of gas, it can
do that at least twicebut better yet, it might be time
to go into a marina and plug into shore power while
The longest running
wooden boat show
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Saturday, May 7, 2016
10 a.m. 4 p.m.
Dozens of handcrafted wooden boats
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Free Boat Rides Knot Tying
Building Ships in a Bottle
Virtual Boating Skills Trainer
Childrens Activities
Barbour Boat Display
See the Cricket II, the boat
that inspired the
movie Jaws.
3/24/16 4:08 PM
 Pure sailing is important for the author, who finds picking
up the mooring under sail to be a point of pride. For this
kind of sailing, electric propulsion with solar regeneration is
a quiet, reliable, and practical solutionwith shore-power
connection and a portable
generator as backup.

COURTESY OF DAVID TELLER

using the showers and having a dinner in town. If we
rely predominantly on sails for propulsion, and if we
are conscientious about working the currents, set real-
istic goals about how far we can go in a day, and dont
use the motor except for necessity, then we have all the
power we need and then some. Such planning, as part
of our cruising routine, will make us even better sailors.
For daysailing, its not an issue: the motor is there when
needed. I am very pleased to say that in the first year of
I could increase power capacity in a number of ways, operation, after the spring commissioning, I never
for example by putting in a second battery bank. The had to open the motor hatches to do anything except
additional weight would be no problem: We actually to show the installation to interested guests. I do not
had to shift trim ballast aft after the new motors instal- miss my days as an on-the-water engine mechanic
lation, which in total weight is several hundred pounds not one bit!
lighter than the Atomic Four and its associated systems.
We could add more solar panels; we already have the Jonathan Taggart, who loves to explore the rocky coastlines of Maine,
layout. Or, we could go to the nearest marina and plug is a sculpture conservator and has also worked with numerous
in every night. But considering the first seasons experi- maritime museums. In addition to NEREID, he maintains and uses a
ence, I think Im going to keep it the way it is. It quite lapstrake Whitehall he built, a Lyman runabout he restored, and
nicely satisfied our needs and the way we sail. a lapstrake pram tender.

Custom Built Wooden Boats

Repairs and Restorations
Storage and Maintenance

416 Main Street Rockport, Maine 04856

Artisan_WoodenBoatHalfPageAd_Jan2015.indd 1 1/19/15 10:15 AM

May/June 2016 57

Solar Sailboat 250-AdFInal.indd 57 3/21/16 11:28 AM

 COM PA ER A
A wilderness cruiser
by Jill Fredston
Photographs by
Jill Fredston and Doug Fesler
N
orth Carolina. Who do we know in North Caro-
lina? asked my husband, Doug Fesler, one dim
morning in January 2004 as I cantilevered over
his shoulder for a closer look at the photos on the com-
puter screen.
We live in Alaska and would likely have better luck
finding a friend in Antarctica. But then Marj Martin
Burgard flashed to mind. She had grown up on the
water in New England, pioneered recreational rowing,
and been game enough in her mid-60s to row several
hundred miles of the Yukon River with us though shed
never before camped a single night. Most relevant, she
knew us and she knew boats. Now in her seventh decade,
she had just migrated south and cheerily answered my
call on the second ring. Marj, do you live anywhere
near New Bern? I asked without preamble though we
hadnt spoken for months. Sure, she answered, Im
45 minutes away.
Three hours later, she called after having tea with
Capt. Alick Mackenzie Slater. The 67-year-old master
mariner had modified a 1954 Eldredge-McInnis design
and spent four years (19982002) building the one-
off, 47', ketch-rigged motorsailer wed been eyeing on
the Internet. He had launched the boat in a nook near
AboveCOMPAERA, a long-distance cruising vessel built to a modified Eldredge-McInnis design, has carried author Jill
Fredston and her husband, Doug Fesler, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, to Labrador, and beyond. If asked why we cruise
such long distances, says Jill, this photograph from Northern Labradora place that feeds our spiritswould be a good
part of the answer.
58 WoodenBoat 250
Companera250-EdFinal.indd 58
Halifax, Nova Scotia, named her COMPAERA (mean-
ing special female friend in Spanish), and appropriately
enough, sailed off to Cuba. Better buy a plane ticket,
urged Marj. This boat has your name on it.
W
e were rowing a second summer in the North-
west Passage in 2003 when the idea of having
a boat powered by something other than dark
chocolate and our fraying joints kept muscling itself
into our conversations. Wed spent nearly 20 summers
rowing two small boats more than 25,000 miles along
northern shores, including much of Alaska and north-
ern Canada, western Greenland, a circumnavigation
of Spitsbergen, and the coast of Norway from Sweden
to Russia. Actually, despite my proselytizing, Doug had
kayaked rather than rowed the first 13,000 miles before
finally nodding to the greater leverage afforded by long
oars and a sliding seat. Our boats could hold food for
up to 100 days, and we reveled in traveling for months
in wild country without seeing many people.
Thirteen years older than me and weary of combat-
ing headwinds, dragging our boats and hundreds of
pounds of gear around blocks of ice the size of dump
trucks, and lying stormbound in our tent for days at a
3/21/16 2:15 PM

time, Doug was quicker to anticipate that it might be
time for a change. In the 1970s, when as a park ranger
Doug was charged with recovering the bodies of ava-
lanche victims from places he wouldnt have hesitated
to go himself, he learned about avalanches through
total immersion and in the process became one of the
worlds authorities. A few decades later, he used the
same approach to learn about boats. Nearly every avail-
able surface in our house had long been heaped with
meticulously read trade magazines.
Dougs highest priorities were seaworthiness and
safety. He wanted a craft that could take some pun-
ishment and was only interested in gear that could
enhance our margin of safety or make life aboard
more body-friendly. He concentrated on hull designs,
construction materials, engine types, fuel efficiency,
and myriad mind-numbing but potentially life-saving
details. I thought his focus noble and wise, but couldnt
stop myself from fantasizing about a couch on which
I could recline and nibble chocolate while the boat
moved without any help from me. Still, I knew that for
us to be content on any big boat, we had to be able
escape into our smaller boats, which at 1912' long were
Companera250-EdFinal.indd 59
A rough rule of thumb for measuring the
minimum safe distance for traveling along the
terminus of a glacier is a length five times the
vertical height of the glacier face. When blocks
of ice larger than a twenty-story building calve,
they can create a fast-moving 25-30 wave. This
image is foreshortened.
going to require some deck space. One of
the limitations of our long rowing trips in
the Arctic was having to bite off as much
mileage as possible on the nice days. The
ability to move steadily through scary or bor-
ing stretches of coast by big boat and then
spend time wiggling along the interesting
intricacies by oar enticed both of us.
Given our proclivity for remote, ice-strewn
regions and penchant for exploring rather
than working, we thought a steel or alumi-
num hull would suit us better than wood.
Sailing held more appeal than motoring, but sailing
at the far latitudes is typically limited by ice and vari-
able wind conditions. We were also cautioned by sailing
friends to decide whether we wanted to go somewhere
or spend our time getting there. We knew we needed
horsepower, but agreed that we didnt want a noisy
engine. Wed spent so many years staving off hypother-
mia that we did not need to discuss the imperative of an
enclosed steering station.
COMPAERA , with her sturdy build, no-nonsense
flared bow looming 8' above the water, shallow 4'6"
draft, traditional lines, and aft pilothouse, immedi-
ately sang to both of us. We knew, however, that two
deal-breakers were going to preclude us from heeding
Marjs advice. First, COMPAERA is a wooden boat. Her
112"-thick hull is cold-molded of four layers of 38" spruce
laid on alternating diagonals, with a sheathing of fiber-
glass cloth set in epoxy on the exterior. Second, she was
powered by a Detroit Diesel 4-71, which is known, not
always affectionately, as a Screaming Jimmy.
Still, COMPAERA lingered in our imaginations.
Before the evening was over, we bought Doug a plane
ticket. Our rationale was that seeing COMPAERA
could teach us more about what we really wanted, and
while on the East Coast, Doug could pay an overdue
visit to his mother. In mid-winter 2004, he left Alaska
with three pairs of underwear and no clue that he
wouldnt return home until fall.
S
hortly after he first saw COMPAERA at the dock,
Doug urged me east to make what had to be a
joint decision. Cocooned in Marjs guest bed, we
whispered pros and cons through several marathon
Doug steers from the comfort of the pilothouse. On
one particularly raw, windy day in southern Patagonia,
COMPAERAs crew received an email message from friends
on a conventional sailboat: We were thinking about you
today warm and dry in your pilothouse while we shivered in
the cockpit, and we decided that we hate you.
May/June 2016 59
3/21/16 2:15 PM
 Jill and Doug are grateful for their 88-lb Rocna anchor, which holds exceptionally well even in the strong winds and currents
of this Labrador anchorage.
nights. The strength and relative simplicity of the boat
appealed to us, as did her capacity for self-sufficiency.
She has large water tanks, a rainwater-collection sys-
tem on the pilothouse roof, and 840 gallons of diesel
tankage. With what a naval architect has described as
a slippery hull, she leaves almost no wake and nibbles
fuel, using an average of 0.7 gallon per hour at 6 knots.
This gives her a theoretical maximum range of more
than 5,200 nautical miles even without factoring in the
three sails, which though mainly useful for steadying,
do increase efficiency and add range. She has a full-
length, straight keel that ranges in depth from 15" at
the bow to 33" at the stern. The keel is made of lami-
nated oak planks covered with fiberglass cloth and
epoxy, and is fitted with a 34"-thick steel shoe along its
length. A separate rudder shoe extends from the after
end of the keel to capture the heel of the rudderstock,
acting as a skid plate, protecting the propeller in case of
grounding, and reducing the chances of catching nets.
It is a robust system, with easy access to the upper rud-
derstock and hydraulic steering through the lazarette.
COMPAERA has dry bilges and a comfortable interior,
with open cabins taking advantage of the 14' 2" beam,
lots of headroom, and the capacity to stow food for a
year as well as an arsenal of tools and spare parts.
One of our concerns about buying a boat 8,000 nau-
tical miles from home was that I was on a book dead-
line and not available to travel. We made Alick an offer
contingent on his helping Doug sail COMPAERA to
Port Townsend, Washington, via the Panama Canal.
60 WoodenBoat 250
Companera250-EdFinal.indd 60
The journey, even in delivery mode, would take about
eight weeks. Alick didnt hesitate, and before long and
despite ourselves, wed made the leap from rowers to
skippers of a small wooden ship.
B
y the time Doug reached the Pacific, he had
mined Alicks intimate knowledge of every wire,
hose, and system stem to stern and had absorbed
the example of Alicks slow, masterful handling of the
boat in tight situations. They arrived in Port Townsend
in late May. Though Alick died only seven months later,
he remains a presence aboard; we think of him when
we use the old-fashioned key engraved with his name
to wind the main cabin clock, or when COMPAERA
withstands a particularly nasty pummeling and brings
us safely to anchor. We have also cursed him on occa-
sion because everything is so solidly built that taking
anything apart can be a challenge.
From Port Townsend, Doug and I and our intrepid
34-lb mutt, Bodie, brought COMPAERA to our new
homeport of Cordova, Alaska. For the next five years,
we spent five to eight months aboard annually, explor-
ing some of our favorite haunts in the world. Bodie,
part terrier, part perpetual mystery, was born in the
Athabaskan Indian village of Nikolai in roadless west-
ern Alaska. He bounced around for a rough three years
before being summarily given to us (his fourth set of
people) in 1999 by an overwhelmed single-mother
friend. An independent thinker, he was a full member
of the crew.
3/21/16 2:15 PM
 Sometimes in Patagonia a good anchorage could be found in a little pocket cove along the edge of an otherwise windy and
unprotected channel. Here, COMPAERAs crew anchored in 70 of water on a steep incline and ran a line astern to the base of
the cliff to maintain a constant position and good holding.

Typically, late winter to mid-spring would find us afar. Our path often intersected by orca or humpback
tucked into one of the myriad quiet anchorages in whales, wed cross to Kodiak Island where wed take
Prince William Sound, chipping steps into the 8'-high rambling walks in spongy rainforest and watch brown
snow berms at the high-tide line so Doug and I could bears fling themselves at spawning salmon. Sometimes
climb to the ridges on skis (with Bodie usually break- wed traverse Cook Inlet, which has 42' -high tides at
ing trail), watching pinnacles of ice calve off the tide- its head, and hunt for fossils of ammonites and giant
water glaciers, spying on sea otters, greeting incoming mussels before heading out along the Alaska Peninsula,
waves of migratory birds, and cheering the escorts of
Dalls porpoise cavorting in front of our bow. Rainy
rows would often be followed by fresh bread and music
in the warm saloon, the spruce interior gleaming from
the flame inside the Dickenson stove. When the winter
storms began to lose their punch, wed venture into the
Gulf of Alaska toward Kenai Fjords, eager to beachcomb
for Japanese glass floats or other fresh treasures from

One of Jill and Dougs primary requirements in a cruising

vessel was the deck space to carry rowing boatsand
the ability to launch them. A power cruiser would allow
Tim Grams

them to move efficiently through monotonous stretches of

coast, and then, writes Jill, spend time wiggling along the
interesting intricacies by oar.

May/June 2016 61

Companera250-EdFinal.indd 61 3/21/16 2:15 PM

 TopThe treasures collected en-route not
only brighten COMPAERAs saloon but also
help hold the memories of distant people and
places close. BottomCOMPAERAs galley is
used routinely to crank out waffle breakfasts
for as many as 16 people, or to feed friends
from around the world.

a nearly 1,000-mile-long majestic sweep

of sand beaches, basalt cliffs, bears, ber-
ries, archaeological sites, big storms, and
steaming volcanoes. When the fall storms
began to ramp up and the days began
noticeably shortening, wed retreat to
Prince William Sound, now free of sum-
mer bustle, and watch the termination
dust (otherwise known as snow), creep
down the mountains, indicating that it
was time to get back to work.
Just as rowing has long been a way that
we are rather than a sport we do, COM-
PAERA quickly became an extension of
ourselves, a very natural way of being.
Even Bodie, who had accompanied us
on rowing trips around Kodiak and into
the Northwest Passage (either lounging
on the stern deck of my shell or loping
for miles alongshore), eased into big-boat
life. Several times every day, hed jump
fearlessly over the gunwale onto a car-
peted plank ramp angling steeply down-
ward from the scupper. Barring the rare
mishap, he would land in the dinghy or
rowing shell waiting to transport him to
shore where hed take us on extended
hikes. Nothing really surprised us about
life on the hook except for the enormous
delight we took in being able to bring fam-
ily and friends into places they might otherwise never set up a quick-launching system using davits that hook
have experienced. Although some might find it incon- into mounts on the transom. Interesting rocks or whale
venient that the engineroom bulkhead blocks inside bones on the beach? No problem; one person can have
passage between the forward and aft cabins, we love the dinghy ready for action in less than thirty seconds.
the privacy afforded to all when we have guests aboard. Because we wanted the ability to remain at anchor for
We sleep aft, which gives us access to the engineroom, days or weeks, we secured a 400-watt array of solar pan-
a head with toilet and sink, and the pilothouse. The els along with a wind generator on the pilothouse roof
guest berth is forward, along with the saloon, galley, to keep the 800-amp-hour house battery bank charged.
and head complete with shower. So if a grandchild is Only in exceptionally cloudy or calm weather (or if the
cranky at the end of a long day, all we have to do is say light police have not been vigilant) do we have to
goodnight, cross the mid-deck, and retreat to our quiet enlist the backup services of either the portable Honda
kingdom. generator or main engine with twin 120- and 130-amp
COMPAERA weighs into most decisions we make. alternators.
She accommodates our needs if we do the same for her.

One of the first modifications we made, during a metic-
ulously planned, intense three hours while grounded
out on a tidal grid, was to drill two 1"-diameter holes
through the hull. Then we installed forward-scanning
sonar transducers that give us a 180-degree view of the
ocean bottom ahead. The sonar gives us the security to
hug the shoreline and to explore uncharted areas. We
use COMPAERAs cold-molded rowing dinghy as read-
ily as most people reach for their smartphones, so we
I
n May 2009, we decided to point COMPAERAs bow
south. Neither of us had ever experienced a winter
without snowit has fascinated me since I was six,
which led me to earn a masters degree in snow and
ice, and ultimately to several decades of working along-
side Doug as an avalanche specialist. And as is typical
of longtime Alaskans, we were beginning to feel a need
to see and feel the sun in winter. Our vague plan was to
head toward Mexicos Sea of Cortez and then perhaps

62 WoodenBoat 250

Companera250-EdFinal.indd 62 3/21/16 2:15 PM


continue down the coasts of Central and South America
to Patagonia. We had no idea how long wed be gone,
which didnt bother us at all but perplexed our fam-
ily and friends. Almost seven years and 43,468 nautical
miles later, we are still not hurrying home.
So with Bodie in his ever-ready position, nose twitch-
ing on the gunwale, we crossed the Gulf of Alaska
and meandered through southeast Alaska and British
Columbia. In late summer, we arrived in Port Townsend,
where we had arranged to haul out and enlisted expert
help for several projects. The most major of these was to
cut a hole in the 114"-thick deck, crane out the Detroit
Diesel, and install a gleaming new four-cylinder, 135-hp
John Deere with a dedicated starter battery. Since we
anticipated traveling long distances in remote regions,
we wanted the reliability of a new engine. To make it as
quiet as possible, we seated it on soft mounts and moved
the wet-exhaust outlet from the side of the boat to the
stern. We also reinforced the first 20' of the port and
starboard waterline with eight layers of fiberglass cloth
set in epoxy for greater protection against logs and ice.
One day in the yard, a naval architect wandered by
and suggested that wed get an even smoother ride if
we added rolling chocks. He said, You can hire me
for $110/hour and Ill work up a computational flow
dynamics model, or you can buy me a coffee and Ill
sketch a plan on a napkin. We splurged and bought
him lunch. These 15'-long stabilizing fins are fixed
to the hull more or less amidships, at the turn of the
bilge on either side. We built them by laminating five
layers shaped from hardwood 26s; they are widest at
their bases and taper toward their outer edges. Using
jack stands as clamps, we screwed and epoxied all the
These 15-long rolling chocks, built in Port Townsend,
Washington, considerably reduce COMPAERAs roll in beam
seasespecially when used in combination with sails.
Companera250-EdFinal.indd 63
COMPAERA in translucent Sea of
Cortez water thatJillsays often
made us wonder whether we were
awake or dreaming.
layers togetherexcept for the
base-to-hull joint, where we omit-
ted the screws in order to encour-
age the rolling chocks to break
away if need be without ripping a
hole in the hull. The fins signifi-
cantly reduced both the roll period
and magnitude; COMPAERA now
rarely heels more than 15 degrees.
Listening to us complain that it was
nearly impossible to turn the boat
in a tight radius, the architect cal-
culated that the steel-plate rudder
was undersized. He suggested that
we nearly double its surface area
by building a rudder with a hydrodynamic foil shape,
which resulted in a marked increase in maneuverabil-
ity.
We didnt escape the boatyard until the end of Octo-
ber. This, of course, was not an optimal window for
sailing down the exposed Pacific Northwest coast. Care-
fully, we nipped and tucked our way between storms.
The forecasted approach of an immense low deeper
than 950 mb, with sustained 55-knot winds at its center,
sent us scurrying into Coos Bay, Oregon, to hide. Two
days later, 25' waves in the entrance channel caused the
Coast Guard to take the nearly unprecedented step of
closing the port even to its own rescue vessels. In bois-
terous winds, one advantage of COMPAERAs short
mainmast, which is keel-stepped and has an air draft
of 39', is that we rarely have to reef. Though the boat
was designed to have a free-standing mainmast and
gaff sails, Alick had set her up with a marconi rig, and
we stayed the mainmast in anticipation of legendary
Patagonian gusts.
We stopped almost everywhere we could, partly to
satisfy our curiosity and also for Bodies sake as he
declined to do his business aboard, even when passages
stretched into multiple days. By the start of 2010, we had
sailed into a parallel universe in Bajas Sea of Cortez;
May/June 2016 63
3/21/16 2:15 PM
 Jill returns to the mother ship after
an evening hike in Nova Scotia.
shell-shocked Alaskans blink-
ing in the abundant sunshine,
delighting in desert ridges,
strolling barefoot along shock-
ingly white sand beaches, and
swimming with the fish in cra-
zily translucent green water.
Continuing southward in
the spring, we didnt adjust
to the tropics as effortlessly.
Costa Rica in May is hot
enough to melt a rubber exer-
cise band into an unrecogniz-
able gooey blob. Wed sweat
while brushing our teeth, and
even indomitable Bodie could
barely lift his head off his paws.
One sticky morning too many,
when debating whether to con-
tinue torturing ourselves, we
decided that wed each write
down our preference and, if in agreement, would act on
our resolution. On our respective paper scraps, Doug
and I scribbled turn and go home. So Doug swung
the wheel hard over and we began our escape. Our
relief lasted only a half-mile before I started second-
guessing our decisionquitting seemed harder than
continuing. Doug, who was having similar misgivings,
spun the wheel yet again and we more stoically resumed
our original course.
With heat comes lightning, and in Panama, boat-
sinking daggers repeatedly sizzled into the water in
frightening proximity. COMPAERA was never hit
directly, but there was enough electrical magnetic
interference one night while I was on watch to cause
almost every one of our electronic instruments to
behave erratically, as if possessed. Most recovered, but a
few of them, including the battery monitor, could never
be resuscitated.
In El Salvador, COMPAERAs formidable bow
proved itself, bobbing easily up and over 8'-high breakers
powerful enough to overwhelm less well-found boats
and tall enough to completely obscure our view of the
jet skimounted pilot we were supposed to be following
over the bar at the entrance to Bahia del Sol. Elsewhere
along the Pacific coast, when it was too harrowing to
land the dinghy through dumping surf, Doug would
drop Bodie and me outside the breaker zone to swim
in. Snorting a little, his chin almost on my shoulder,
Bodie would plug steadily to shore, ducking at all the
appropriate times. But when I tried to lead him to sea,
he would backpaddle with the strength of a mother bear
defending her cub. Enveloping him in a one-armed life-
guard hold, I would drag him unceremoniously back
through the surf.
Ecuador, with more clouds and cooler ocean tem-
peratures, brought relief from the heat, and we made
64 WoodenBoat 250
Companera250-EdFinal.indd 64
steady progress into the southern hemisphere despite
running counter to the prevailing current and wind.
In Peru, while we traveled overland to Machu Picchu
and other magic places, Bodie did a home stay with a
young couple who didnt speak any English. Eminently
adaptable, he learned Spanish. His vocabulary was for-
midable, ranging far beyond the obligatory sientate (sit
down), venga (come), and carne (meat).
We reached Puerto Montt in northern Patagonia in
late November 2010. Roughly 1,000 miles separate this
area from Puerto Williams near Cape Horn in south-
ern Chile, but we roamed 6,000 nautical miles in a year
and a half. Relying on the sonar, as the charts often
gave no depth information, we ranged deep into the
convoluted maze of fjords. We were alone and without
resupply for so many months at a time that we began to
regard pickles as vegetables and applesauce as fruit.
Patagonia is smooth granite ridges ruled by sharp-
eyed Andean condors with 10' wingspans, lavish
waterfalls, fairyland spires, biblical rain punctuated
by blazing rainbows, and complete calm followed in a
blink by 60-knot shrieks. Though we have enormous
faith in the 88-lb Rocna we use as our main anchor,
taking anything for granted in Patagonia usually exacts
a toll, so we routinely ran at least two lines to shore.
Patagonia made us soaringly grateful to be alive, and
nearly crushed us. On a high-spirited day south of the
Straits of Magellan in October 2011, Bodie and I went
hiking in a magnificent amphitheater of domed moun-
tains, wind-wizened trees, tundra terraces, and squishy
meadows. Too excited to remember that he was elderly
(probably around 1412), he took off like his younger
rocket dog self and charged across an entire valley. I
last saw him along the bank of a major cataract where
braided torrents of water dropped over a series of slip-
pery, polished ledges. Then he vanished.
3/21/16 2:15 PM
 Helped by compassionate friends from another boat,
we searched for a blur of days in wretched weather, with
penetrating sleet and 70-knot winds forceful enough to
blow waterfalls uphill and knock us to our knees. Yell-
ing ourselves hoarse, none of us ever found a single
sign of Bodie. We dont know that the waterfall is where
he met his end, but it is as good a bet as any. Within
minutes of his disappearance, an especially brilliant
rainbow erupted across the sky, stretching in full arc
directly from the river to my feet.
Without Bodie around to quiver with excitement
whenever we lowered the dinghy, it seemed pointless
for a good long while to go for a walk. We limped along,
a hollow ship. Ever so slowly, we regained momentum
and in March 2012 the wind helped push us from the
tip of South America nearly 400 miles across to the
Falkland Islands. Stunning for their vibrancy, they are
host to five addicting and endlessly entertaining types
of penguins, acrobatic porpoises, inquisitive sea lions,
log-like elephant seals, and nesting albatross.
Crossing back to the red-rock desert country of
southeastern Argentina, we hopped our way north
along the Atlantic coast, lingering for five months in
Brazil. There we reconnoitered a few rivers and became
aficionados of capoeira, the crazily athletic, drum-
driven martial art imported by slaves and disguised as
dance. Before swimming with turtles or indulging in
other Caribbean delights, we hired help and checked
into hard labor camp in Trinidad. For 86 hot, dust-
encrusted, respirator-wearing days, we rejuvenated
COMPAERA , while having the opposite effect on our-
selves. The most brutal of the projects involved sanding
all deck and house surfaces to bare plywood and cover-
ing them with Nexus Veil (polyester cloth) and epoxy
before applying nonskid paint. The Nexus Veil project
may not look like much in a sentence, but it involved
a staggering amount of work that ultimately made all
surfaces more impervious to weather and the wood less
prone to checking. We also commissioned new uphol-
stery and varnished or painted (in a multitude of col-
ors) nearly all of the interior surfaces. By the time we
painted the hull, we had developed a bit of an attitude;
hence the bright yellow stripe along the bulwarks.
Bodie, a worthy shipmate and kindred soul, exploring Tierra
del Fuego.
Companera250-EdFinal-Rev1.indd 65
Jillwas so enthralled when photographing king penguins
in the Falklands that she didnt notice this other group
marching up behind her.
Dazed but euphoric, we splashed again in late Febru-
ary 2013. Three months later, we picked up a mooring
in my ancestral harbor of Larchmont, New York, in
time to celebrate my mothers 85th birthday and then
continued north, intending to spend the summer cir-
cumnavigating Newfoundland. We did make our way
around the rock, but not before succumbing to the lure
of northern Labrador. It was my fourth trip (Dougs
third) to this country we especially cherish, but the first
time when, instead of polar bears stumbling at random
hours into our camp, we had the luxury of watching
them from the high-sided security of COMPAERAs
decks. When heading south, we stopped in tiny Pur-
cells Cove, the Nova Scotian birthplace of our stead-
fast ship. Though it was a drizzly afternoon, locals who
remembered helping to turn the hull or raise the mast
emerged from their houses to hail us in gentle brogue
and welcome COMPAERA home.
During our voyage, Doug became famous for his
sourdough waffles, which we sometimes heard being
discussed on the single-sideband radio. It was not
uncommon to suddenly find a boat or two anchored in
hopeful proximity on a Sunday morning, even if wed
never met the crew. His sourdough starter has made
its way into the hands of an ever-expanding network
of friends from around the planet. COMPAERA is
overflowing with art and natural treasures collected en
route, and though we have again transited the Panama
Canal and 2016 will likely find us back in Alaska, our
journey feels far from over. We are still curious about
what lies around the next corner, and are often asked
about our intentions for future cruising in COMPA-
ERA . Doug usually answers, only half in jest, We
dont have a plan and were sticking to it.
Jill Fredston is the author of several books including Rowing
to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctics Edge, which won
the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature, and Snow-
struck: In the Grip of Avalanches.
May/June 2016 65
3/24/16 4:16 PM
 Two Gambles

ROSENFELD COLLECTION, MYSTIC SEAPORT

The birth and survival of the Atlantic class

by John Rousmaniere

T
he 1920s were a boom time for all Americans,
but especially sailors. In the thriving economy,
old waterfronts were converted from commercial
ports to yacht clubs, many of them devoted to the new
idea of junior sailing with equal opportunity for girls
and boys. One of the best-known young sailors of the
time was Lorna Whittelsey Hibberd. A graduate of the
junior program founded in 1924 by the Indian Harbor
Yacht Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, in her teens and
twenties she won five national womens championships
for the Adams Cup and many other prizes as well
against sailors of all ages. All summer we mostly
sailed, she recalled many years later in an interview
with Mystic Seaports oral historian, Fred Calabretta.
We used to go down the Sound. We would sail down
and sail back, which horrifies people now because
they either get towed, or always start off American or
Larchmont [yacht clubs]. It was good fun because we
learned a whole lot that we never would have learned
[otherwise]. There werent many days off, she added.

AboveA good fun boat, very popular with younger sailors, the Starling Burgess-designed, Abeking & Rasmussen-built
Atlantic Class received an added boost when parachute spinnakers were introduced in the mid-1930s.

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 Crewed by her designer (in the broad-brimmed hat),
the prototype Atlantic sails on Long Island Sound.
By 1930, 99 Atlantics were racing in 13 fleets from
Long Island to Maine.

You had to go to church. The sailors didnt all go

to church.
Sailors like that were, and still are, drawn to chal-
lenging boats, and if anyone was eager to create
such a boat, he was Starling Burgess. When Burgess
turned 50 in 1928, his career as a yacht designer
was reaching a new peak of activity and success.
As Llewellyn Howland III writes in his recent biog-
raphy of Burgess, No Ordinary Being, the radical
staysail rig that pushed NIA , the schooner of his
design, to victory in that years Transatlantic and

Edwin Levick Collection, The Mariners Museum

Fastnet races, offered the yachting world dramatic
evidence that Starling Burgess was ready to move
from the regional onto the national and indeed the
international stage. The Burgess-designed M-class
sloop PRESTIGE, meanwhile, was winning armfuls
of trophies on the New England racing circuit for
her owner-skipper Harold Vanderbilt, who in his
careful way was developing the relationship with
Burgess that led to three AMERICAs Cup victories
in the 1930s.
Heading the New York naval architecture firm
of Burgess, Rigg & Morgan, Burgess brought four
strengths to the drafting table. One was his life-
long experience with boats; the more original they
were, the better. Another was his brief but intense
engagement with the new field of aerodynamics as Rasmussen, in Bremen, Germany, he had been in the
a pioneering airplane pilot, designer, and builder Western Hemisphere yachting market for several years.
experience that gave him a head start with lightweight At first his plans were modestfor example, when in
construction and the newly popular marconi rig. His 1924 he sent over some dinghies for junior sailing pro-
third strength was his willingness to take chances, grams that were beginning to spring up at yacht clubs
which he did with aircraft and many boats. on the U.S. East Coast. Two years later, Rasmussen and
Burgesss fourth strength in 1928 was more pedes- Burgess collaborated on a somewhat larger project
trian than the other three: his business relationship when they developed a class of keel one-designs for the
with a capable, ambitious boatbuilder. At a time when Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. And then Burgess and Ras-
most sailboats were small or built either one-off or mussen raised their sights: From 1927 through 1930,
in limited numbers, Henry Jimmy Rasmussen was they together designed and built a total of 150 boats for
thinking big. The Danish-born head of Abeking & American sailors.
They started in a dramatic fashion with fleets of
one-design International 8-, 10-, and 12-Metersa
total of 31 boats, with overall lengths from 50' to 70'.
Owned by Clifford D. Mallory and other leaders of the
rapidly developing sport of amateur yacht racing, the
big meter-boat fleets attracted wide attention, and not
Rosenfeld Collection, Mystic Seaport

only for their tight racing. Shipped to Halifax, Nova

Scotia, in order to avoid U.S. duties, they were then
sailed across open water to the American East Coast.
These voyages both proved the seaworthiness of the
controversial new marconi rig and provided offshore

Five-time winner of the Adams Cup for the national

womens championship, Lorna Whittelsey Hibberd (right,
stopping a spinnaker) was an early Atlantic Class star along
with Bus Mosbacher and Bob Bavier.

May/June 2016 67

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 Atlantic Class Archives

With her moderate displacement, U-shaped sections, large sail plan, and light construction, the Atlantic-Boote (shown
here in the Abeking & Rasmussen construction plan) was not another deep-hulled heavyweight inspired by the meter-boat
classes. The seats for the crew were optional.

experience for several young sailors. One of those
youthful initiates was 19-year-old Olin Stephens, who a
decade later teamed up with Burgess to design Vander-
bilts J-boat RANGER . (Stephens later revealed that the
towing tank model on which the design was based was
Burgesss work.)
With the complicated meter-boat projects behind
him in early in 1928, Burgess drew up the plans for a
new one-design class, which he and Rasmussen called
the Atlantic Coast One-Design. The boat measured
30' overall and 21' on the waterline, and was intended
as a daysailer-racer. Despite competition from several
existing classes of that size, its popularity was explosive:
There were so many Atlantics on western Long Island
Sound in 1929 that the race committee for the areas
big regatta, Larchmont Race Week, divided them into
two fleets of 30 boats apiece. To put this into perspec-
tive, another popular class, the Sound Interclub (see
WB No. 242), had been considered a success with 27
hulls. Within two years, Atlantics would account for 99
of the 150 boats Burgess and Rasmussen designed and
built together.
World War I. The prototype of what Rasmussen called
the Atlantic-Boote arrived in New York in the summer
of 1928 was not as extreme as the Sonder Boat, yet its
4,559-lb displacement was two-thirds the weight of
other 30-footers of her day. Here was a boat that prom-
ised to perform well. Her sail area/displacement ratio
(SA/D) of 23.3 was well above the Sound Interclubs
20.6, the Herreshoff S-boats 19.6, and the 18.4 of the
soon-to-arrive International One-Design (popularly
known as the IOD and a close cousin to a 6-Meter; see
page 40 for an account of its development). The more
modern Shields class is in the heav y meter-boat
tradition, with its 20.8 SA/D ratio.
Rosenfeld Collection, Mystic Seaport

Freed of the International Rule that shaped the

heavy meter-boats, Burgess called on his nearly lifelong
experience with fast, extreme craft in the design of the
Atlantic. One of these influences was the Sonder Boat,
a radical, restricted class of long-overhang, lightish-
displacement keelboats that had been popular before

The original boat featured a straight-leech, high-boom

mainsail, self-tacking jib, single-luff balloon spinnaker, and
simple rigging (except aloft to support the big rig).

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 Rosenfeld Collection, Mystic Seaport
Atlantics in the large Western Long Island Sound fleet approach a mark near Execution Rock, around 1950. By then the
boats devotees were worrying enough about structural problems to bar Dacron sails, limit boom vangs, and think about
replacement hulls.
As Burgess spent a good part of the 1928 summer
taking the prototype from yacht club to yacht club, the
sailors response was very strong. Rasmussen stepped
up the specifications for the production boat, replac-
ing the iron ballast with lead and the cedar planking
with mahogany. Planks were fitted tight, without caulk-
ing, over oak frames on 8" centers; they were fastened
with silicon-bronze screws. Thanks to the depressed
German mark and A&Rs assembly-line techniques, the
price was low at $1,800 (about $25,000 today). That was
about half the price of a similar-sized Herreshoff-built
S-boat.
Everybody lauded the Atlantics performance.
Those who take pleasure in sailing a boat which is
light and delicate on the helm, and lively to handle,
should appreciate this craft, wrote a Yachting magazine
correspondent who sailed the prototype. Lorna Whit-
telsey Hibberd, in her oral history, described racing
an Atlantic in an inter-class team race against the top
Sound Interclubs: A lot of the Interclubs got upwind
first, including Arthur Knapp. But then when we got
on the reach, we just went down the waves and surfed.
The Atlantic was much faster. They were a good fun
boat. Fun to sail and fast, the good fun boat had a
striking appearance, too, with a snub bow, a low profile
unobstructed by a cabin, and a long afterdeck leading
Atlantic Class 250-EdFinal.indd 69
back to a graceful counter stern. When a class cham-
pion of the 1960s, Joe Olson of Cedar Point Yacht Club
in Westport, Connecticut, called Atlantics our gallant
beauties, he expressed the devotion of many sailors.
A more recent Atlantic owner, Dick Morris, who sails
at Niantic Bay Yacht Club, in Niantic, Connecticut, has
described his decision to buy into the class in these
words: I joined the cult and bought an Atlantic.
As much as the cultists have loved the Atlantics looks,
what won their hearts for keeps was its performance
and not just downwind. Karl Kirkman, a naval architect
who has raced an Atlantic successfully against other
keel boats, has explained the boats all-round ability:
To a naval architect, the most amazing thing I found
was the way Burgess used powerful, almost scow-like
ends to the hull to gain sailing length. The boat sort
of goes the same speed upwind and down in moderate
conditions because of the ability to increase the sailing
length when heeled. Since my Atlantic races amongst
a Shields fleet, it is easy and instructive to watch them
together near the start, and see the wizardry of Burgess
before the Atlantic inexorably pulls away.
J
immy Rasmussen was so pleased by the boats imme-
diate success that he became eager to place boats
on the Pacific coast. When he changed the name
May/June 2016 69
3/23/16 5:06 PM
 The gamble on the Burgess design in the 1920s paid off, and so did the later bets in the 1950s on new construction. Here, the
mostly fiberglass Atlantic fleet contests the national championship on Blue Hill Bay, Maine, in 2008.
from Atlantic Coast One-Design to Atlantic Class, some
wags, inspired by the countrys largest national grocery
chain, nicknamed the boat the Atlantic & Pacific class.
How those A&P boats could run and reach! Yachting
editor Sam Wetherill exclaimed. The Atlantics West
Coast initiatives were unsuccessful until the Kutscher
family moved from Connecticut to Vashon Island,
Washington, bringing with them Atlantic No. 62 for
daysailing on Puget Sound.
Two years of deliveries during 1929 and 1930 created
13 Atlantic fleets that ranged from the south shore of
Long Island, at Cedarhurst, New York, to Long Island
Sound (10 fleets), on to Warwick, Rhode Island, in
upper Narragansett Bay, and, finally, as far east as Port-
land, Maine. A very few boats had small cuddies, but
most had wide-open cockpits that became quite damp
in even a short chop. The Cedarhurst sailors eventually
tired of the long tow out through shallow Great South
Bay to the racecourse on the ocean, the Warwick fleet
was wiped out by the hurricane of 1938, and the Port-
land boats migrated to Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club in
Blue Hill, Maine. Today there are five fleets. In order of
seniority, they are Cold Spring Harbor, New York; Nian-
tic Bay (Connecticut) Yacht Club; Cedar Point Yacht
Club, Westport, Connecticut; Madison (Connecticut)
Beach Club; and Kollegewidgwok Yacht Club.
Fleet No. 1, the founder of the class association and
the author of the class rules, was the Pequot Yacht Club
at Southport, Connecticut. The effort was led by Fred
T. Bedford, a small-boat enthusiast who had started out
in extreme one-off catboats in the 1890s but quickly
tired of the yachting arms race. Nobody minds being
beaten in competition where conditions are equal for
the competitors, he observed in Edwin J. Schoettles
book about American yachting in the early 20th cen-
tury, Sailing Craft, but who will voluntarily enter a race
70 WoodenBoat 250
Atlantic Class 250-EdFinal.indd 70
in which he is licked before he spreads a sail? Bedford
leapt into the first one-design classes. When the proto-
type Atlantic turned up at Southport and beat his Star
boat, he made the switch and 19 of his friends quickly
followed.
The first rule book seems innocent in its simplic-
ity, with 11 plainly worded regulations taking up just
three pages. Rigging was tightly controlled, in-season
haulouts were restricted, and purchase of new sails was
limited. Those original sails look odd to us today: the
straight-leeched mainsail, the high-clewed self-tacking
jib, and the tiny balloon spinnaker with its sheet run-
ning upwind of the headstay. When more modern
sails were allowed, as with all class rules they had to be
approved by the owners. The Atlantics well-organized
class association, tight rules, and large numbers led
to its frequent selection in the 1930s as the boat for
national and regional womens, junior, intercollegiate,
and interscholastic championships. The interscholastic
Clifford D. Mallory Trophy features a tiny model of an
Atlantic.
I
n 1929, the class held its first championship regatta,
at Pequot, in a three-race series won by James Till-
inghast, from Warwick. Soon the owners included
J-class AMERICAs Cup figures such as George Nichols
and Clinton Crane. The celebrated gray fox of Long
Island Sound, Cornelius Shields, sailed Atlantics for
a while. In his autobiography, he said that one of the
two most important sailing prizes he ever won was the
1931 Atlantic Class Championship. (Yet he preferred
heavy displacement and founded two classes from the
meter-boat school, the International One-Design and
the Shields.) Other Atlantic sailors were the three win-
ning skippers of the first four AMERICAs Cup contests
of the 12-Meter era, from 1958 through 1967: Briggs
3/23/16 5:06 PM
 Benjamin Mendlowitz

Cunningham, Emil Bus Mosbacher, Jr., and Robert
N. Bavier, Jr. Mosbachers first mate, Victor Romagna,
and AMERICAs Cup tactician Tom Whidden were also
weaned in Atlantics. All five of these sailors have been
elected to the AMERICAs Cup Hall of Fame. Amid all
that young, famous talent, the first two-time class cham-
pion (in 1937 and 1938) was a disabled sailor named
Mills Husted. With his left arm withered by a birth
defect, he steered his well-maintained RUMOUR (Atlan-
tic No. 27) from the port side regardless of which tack
he was on.
There is continuity in Atlantic fleets. Families are
interwoven with the boats history. I know this from my
own experience at the Cold Spring Harbor Beach Club,
on Long Island. Founded in a former vacation hotel as
a family summer center in 1921, the club acquired an
Atlantic fleet in 1930. Competition was serious. It was
always intense around the house on Saturdays, Lou-
ise Earle Loomis, the daughter of one of the pioneer
Beach Club skippers, has told me. But competition had
personal connections. In the 1930s, Atlantic No. 94,
LYNX, was sailed by the young man who would become
my father, with a regular crew that included his own
very game father, whose chief sporting interest was golf.
Among his competitors were Dads schoolmates, named
Page, Lindsay, and Noyes. Decades later, my father was
back racing Atlantics at Cold Spring Harbor against
(and sometimes with) those former classmates. At the
Rosenfeld Collection, Mystic Seaport
Yacht Club fleet were sailed by women in July when the
men were back at work in the city. Some boats were
also sailed by the same women in August, after their
husbands came Down East. One of the sailing seasons
of the longtime fleet leader, Alida Milliken Camp,
was described as follows by Kollegewidgwok historian
Berto Nevin: They won every race, nearly sinking in
one when a squall knocked them down, but Alida was
a determined skipper and no squall was going to deny
her, so she sailed on, her crew bailed as they raced to
another victory, finishing with the perfect score.
At Pequot Yacht Club, Miss Charlotte Perry (as
the newspaper reporters called her)better known as
Sharlie Perry Barringersailed in Atlantic No. 6, CAR-
OLINA , from age 14 on. Her victories were not always
fully celebrated. After she won a race by six minutes,
a reporter felt called upon to comment, A girl from
the Pequot Yacht Club gave proof to the old adage
about the lethal qualities of the female of the species, if
proof were needed,
by walloping her
male rivals in the
biggest group of
the day, that for
Atlantic Class
boats. In 1944
she won the Class

Atlantic Class Championship at Cold Spring Harbor

last September, I trimmed the mainsheet for George
Lindsay, the son of one of my fathers opponents of 50 Briggs Cunningham,
to 80 years ago. shown here in his
Women were always sailing Atlantics. One Cold still-wooden A12,
Spring Harbor boat for decades was the bright-red SPINDRIFT, in 1954,
ZEST (Atlantic No. 95), sailed by Anna Matheson played a major role
Wood, known to all as Aunt Nan. She was a leader in in the process that
the national movement to establish womens sailing as introduced fiberglass
a sport. At Blue Hill, a popular summer haven for New construction to the
Yorkers, many of the Atlantics in the Kollegewidgwok Atlantics.

May/June 2016 71

Atlantic Class 250-EdFinal.indd 71 3/23/16 5:06 PM

 Championship with a 111052 record. Later, with
her husband, Rufus Barringer, Sharlie raced CARO-
LINA at Cold Spring Harbor. I would love to sail in
an Atlantic again, she said recently. I still think the
Atlantic is one of the most beautiful boats ever. We
used to go cruising in the Atlantics. We had so much
fun in those boats. When I look at them today, I think,
How in the world did they put us in these boats at such
a young age?
M
arking the classs 20th birthday in 1949, the
knowledgeable yachting writer Everett B. Mor-
ris identified three reasons for the Atlantics
success: (1) the vigor with which its converts sing its
praises, (2) the solid all-round performance of the
boat modernized with loose-footed jib and parachute
spinnaker, and (3) the impossibility of getting any-
thing anywhere near as good for the same price. That
bargain price was not necessarily a good thing. The
Atlantic was inexpensive because it was lightly built,
fragile, and aging quickly. The boom vang (then called
the boom guy) was permitted by the rules to have only
two parts because anything stronger might break the
boom, and maybe weaken the lightly built hull. Most
sailors preferred the expedient of the human boom
vanga sailor seated on the boom as far aft as he or
she dared. After the first synthetic sail fabric, nylon,
was allowed in the 1940s, the sails proved so stretchy
that sailors demanded that they be free to experiment
with low-stretch synthetics, such as Orlon and the
rumored miracle fabric (which eventually appeared
as Dacron). But class chairman Charles Ames, a Cold
Spring Harbor sailor, feared that Dacron might over-
stress the hulls, so the Rules Committee barred it.
The fact is, Atlantics had been leakers right from the
start. After the first shipments from Germany in 1929,
the Burgess and Abeking & Rasmussen offices, rec-
ognizing that the frames were too small and flexible,
scrambled to design bigger ones for the 1930 boats.
This improvement, however, did not cure the inherent
flexibility in these lightly built, flattish-bottomed, hard-
driven boats. Theoretically, the Atlantics are planked
with mahogany on oak ribs, Everett Morris observed in
the 1940s, but the more active these boats become, the
stronger grows the belief that they are constructed of
rubber. Norman B. Peck, Jr. of Niantic Bay, the classs
16-time national champion, has used another analogy:
an Atlantic he sailed in the 1940s, he told me, was a
wicker basket.
If the boats were inexpensive to buy, they were
extremely expensive to maintain. Charles Ames esti-
mated his total maintenance expense over a few years
in the late 1940s and early 1950s at $3,903 ($38,000 in
2015 dollars)this for a boat that he had purchased
for $2,000. Boatyards on Long Island Sound had a set
of special molds for replacing or sistering broken
Atlantic framesand they did a lot of business. Ames
and the other sailors loved their Atlantics very much
and were prepared to do anything to keep them sailing.
Discussions with boatyards about building new planked
hulls (Abeking & Rasmussen, then enjoying a second
boom producing Concordia yawls and sloops for the
72 WoodenBoat 250
Atlantic Class 250-EdFinal.indd 72
U.S. market) or hot-molded hulls (Luders Marine Con-
struction Co.) went nowhere.
Then a third option surfaced: a new building method
(soon to be called fiberglass) using layers of synthetic
fabric and polyester resin. A letter to four of the very
few boatbuilders who worked with the material turned
up just one show of interest, Lester Goodwin of Cape
Cod Shipbuilding in Wareham, Massachusetts. We
are sure that we can equal or reduce the weight on the
Atlantic and have a boat much stronger than your pres-
ent wood boat, Goodwin wrote the Rules Committee.
After a long career as a salesman for the famous power-
boat racer and boatbuilder Gar Wood and other yards,
Goodwin had bought Cape Cod Shipbuilding and
acquired the rights to build boats to several Herreshoff
designs. To visit the yard was a flashback to the past,
Cedar Point Atlantic sailor Jim Bradley has told me.
Mr. Goodwin often had a fire going in his office fire-
place that he fed with teak and mahogany scrap from
the yard. He was an avid hunter, so when he sat down
he had to kick his hunting dogs off the chair. When he
took you to lunch, it was to a local diner where, no mat-
ter what you wanted, you got a cheeseburger because
thats what he ate.
Goodwins proposal to convert wooden hulls to
fiberglass put the Atlantic Class on the spot. A quarter
century after Burgess took a gamble when he made the
Atlantic so different from other boats its size, the class
in the early 1950s was challenged to make another big
bet: To save their Atlantics from sinking, they would
need to use a radical new building material that might
produce boats much faster than the old woodies. Des-
perate to save the boat they loved, the class went ahead
with the conversion plan.
Goodwin took the next step in what he dramati-
cally referred to as the reincarnation of the Atlantic
by selecting RUMOUR , Mills Husteds old boat, as the
plug from which to produce the mold for the first fiber-
glass hull. Briggs Cunningham financed the process
with a loan. An heir to a Midwestern fortune and Fred
Bedfords son-in-law, Cunningham was an automo-
bile racer, had won three Atlantic championships, and
would win the AMERICAs Cup in 1958 as helmsman
of the 12-meter COLUMBIA . None of this went to the
head of this modest man who, among his many con-
tributions, donated the schooner BRILLIANT to Mystic
Seaport.
When RUMOURs fiberglass hull was found to be 300
lbs lighter than the old one, compensating lead ingots
were placed in the bilge before the boat was towed to
Southport for the 1954 Class Championship, where
her skipper would be Cunningham. A member of that
delivery crew, Goodwins son Gordon, has told me,
As we pulled into the dock, Briggs stepped on board,
inspected the rig, and said, This rigging is too tight
for an Atlantic. Once under sail, he quickly discovered
that the fiberglass hull could carry a tauter rig than a
soft wooden boat. To the relief of all, the first glass boat
finished fourth of 28 boats: She was competitive but not
dominant.
The Cape Cod yard sold RUMOUR to John Hersey,
the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of Hiroshima and
3/23/16 5:06 PM

Benjamin Mendlowitz
other books. After a summer of racing at Pequot,
Hersey was asked by Charles Ames if he felt 100 percent
favorable about the boat. Hersey replied, My answer
has to be that I feel 1,000 percent. We never bail.
The crew is happy. In heavy weather, where once the
dried-out topsides took in water in a way familiar to all
Atlantic sailors, we now can sit and chat and look at the
viewwe can concentrate on racing, too. He added,
Ill say that I feel sure that while the glass boats will
not outclass the others, they will sail with the best of
the wooden boats, other things being equal. Twenty
hulls were converted in 195658, and many more later
made the switch at Cape Cod Shipbuilding or, for a few
years, at the Seafarer yard on Long Island. Meanwhile,
new boats with sail numbers over 99 were also built. In
time, the glass boats, with their compensating lead in
the bilge, did prove faster in most conditions, as well
as more dry and less costly to maintain. Sharlie and
Rufus Barringer, owners of CAROLINA , held out for
wood. That was a decision that was both philosophi-
cal and economical, she said. We just didnt go that
route. Most of the time, we were competitive. But when
it blew hard or if there was a sea, the fiberglass boats
seemed to sail through the waves better. Some owners
were distressed as they gave up their dear old woodies.
Cutting up A30 was very sad, Jim Bradley said of the
conversion of his INGNUE. The boat was unbelievably
sound. The Germans built an extremely good boat. A
Atlantic Class 250-EdFinal.indd 73
One of the few wooden Atlantics still sailing
after the 1960s, TRIPLE THREAT shows off the
Burgess lines and original rig after her 1994
restoration by Frank Day, Jr. This was her final
sail before going to Mystic Seaport to join its
permanent collection of historic watercraft.
compensation was that the new boats looked
quite good. Unlike other fiberglass conver-
sions, it didnt change the boats character,
says Atlantic sailor and photographer Guy
Gurney. It looks like a wooden boat that
happens to have a fiberglass skin.
Today, Atlantic sail numbers are at 149,
and two-thirds of the 87 existing Atlan-
tics are sailing and racing under powerful
modern rigs and aluminum spars. A recent
National Championship at Blue Hill had
41 entries, a majority of them trailered
hundreds of miles from their home clubs.
The quality of competition at the top of the
fleet is very high. I cant recall sailing in a
boat pushed so aggressively, and so intelli-
gently, as Norm Pecks MISS APRIL (Atlantic
No. 130) was in a Sunday afternoon race at
Niantic Bay in 2013.
A
bout 14 wooden Atlantics are believed
by the class to have survived. One of
the best known of them is No. 23, TRI-
PLE THREAT, which after a long, active life,
is in storage at Mystic Seaport. Two other
woodies are known to be sailing still. The
Barringers CAROLINA , somewhat modified from the
Burgess-Abeking specifications and now called SILVER-
FISH, is owned and sailed by boatbuilder Steve White in
Maine. The other is PISCES (No. 69), owned by Harry
Fish, Jr. of Jonesport, Maine.
Fishs father acquired PISCES for $1,000 from a Blue
Hill owner in 1972, and she was first to finish in that
years big race, the Bucks Harbor Regatta. A retired
high school math and science teacher, Harry Jr. con-
tinues to sail the boat under the burgee of the Port &
Starboard Yacht Club. Shes all original, he told me in
2013, with her old wooden mast, high-cut jib, and the
original bronze fittings. The big event is an annual race
at Jonesport with a three-mile windward leg. PISCES is
up to it, and so is Fish, another member of the cult. Its
such a spectacular boat! It looks like its going about
100 mph just lying at the mooring. Then when you sail
her shes a black line in the water with sails sticking out
of her. Everybody who sees the boat loves it. Ive sailed a
lot of other boats, but Ive been fascinated with this one
since the day I first sailed her.
The Atlantic is such a dream to sail. Its almost like
it knows where to go on its own. We finish first always.
My racing strategy is go fast all the time, and faster
when we can.
John Rousmaniere, a regular contributor, is author of the book
The Great Atlantic: The First 85 Years (Smith-Kerr, 2014).
May/June 2016 73
3/23/16 5:06 PM
 The Herreshoff Mast Hoop
A lesson in humility
Text by Wade Smith Photographs by Heather Holloway

A
mast hoop is the easiest part of a traditional boat
to explain: Its like a big shower curtain ring
that allows the sail to slide up and down the
mast. Like many ancient devices, it often works as
well or better than modern equivalents. Sail track, for
example, can bend or pull out, or track cars can jam,
leaving your sail stuck wherever it isan inconvenience
at best. Of course, to use mast hoops, the mast along
the luff must be free of obstructions such as shrouds
and spreaders. Thats why mast hoops are associated
with gaff or sprit rigs, and unstayed or lightly stayed
masts.
Excellent laminated mast hoops are available at
reasonable prices, but at Snediker Yacht Restoration,
in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, where I work, we use period-
authentic replacements in our restorations. Currently,
were finishing the rebuild of a B.B. Crowninshield
Raceabout-class sloop from 1902, named THE KID,
which needed new hoops. The Crowninshield sail plans
didnt include any details about hoops. This was com-
monly the case; builders didnt need the information,
since mast hoops were so readily available. We searched
thousands of plans in several major collectionsand
found nothing, not even with the help of Kurt Hassel-
balch, curator of the Hart Nautical Collections at Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology. But my colleague
Ed McClave in Mystic knew of a mast hoop detail on
the spar plan for BIRD, a racing catboat built by the
Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in 1890.
The most striking thing about the Herreshoff mast
hoop compared to one of today is that it is incredibly
delicate. Nathanael G. Herreshoff shaved off weight any
way he could, especially aloft. These deceptively simple-
looking Herreshoff mast hoops can be made in sizes
that fit any boatbut be warned: A small project isnt
always easy.

AboveThree finished Herreshoff hoops built by the author are on the leftfine and light, with just one thickness of wood
scarfed at the ends. Some of the other hoops are also traditionally made, and some are heavier with two-and-a-half wraps.

74 WoodenBoat 250

Making Mast Hoops 250-AdFinal.indd 74 3/21/16 2:17 PM

 1.
1. Planning the first cut. Although red
oak or white ash would bend more
readily, white oak is specified in the
plan, so thats what we used. I looked
for the greenest, straightest, clearest
pieces I could find. Most mast hoop
blanks are small, so its possible to find
good bending stock in fresh slabs at
the sawmill. It is imperative that the
strips be cut perfectly with the grain
splitting out the stock is the surest way
to do that, but the next-best approach
is to draw a line down the center of the
stock parallel to the medullary rays. If
you dont know what those are or cant
see them, start a little split in both ends
with a hatchet, study which way the
splits run, and draw your line parallel
to that.
4.
4. Ripping the staves. Now you can
rip the staves to width. Again, if you
are worried about saw marks, cut the
pieces oversized and plane them to the
finished dimension. I started with 84
stock, so I got four blanks from each
slice.
Making Mast Hoops 250-AdFinal.indd 75
2. 3.
2. The first cut. Free-handing on a 3. Ripping the strips. Rip out strips to
tablesaw to the marked cut line gives their finished molded dimensionor
the straightest, smoothest cut. The thicknessif you dont mind saw marks,
next-best method is to use a handheld or about 116 thicker if you want to
circular saw. But any method is fine, as plane the staves to their final thickness.
long as you can cut and finish smoothly (The other measurement is the sided
and squarely to the line. dimension, or width viewed from the
side. My finished dimensions were
1
4 516.) Mark the sapwood before
cutting near it to avoid any chance of
including it.
5.
6.
6. The steambox. Stock
this small can be steamed
in a small box with steam
provided by something
5. Tapering the ends. When as simple as a teakettle.
making many large mast The rule of thumb is that
hoops, I build a jig for cutting wood cooks for one hour
the tapered ends. For a handful of small hoops, per inch of thicknessso
its faster and easier just to mark and cut the ends only about 15 minutes for
one at a time by hand. I used a bandsaw and a these 14-thick sticks. This
stationary sander, but it would be as fast to use formula is just a guide. Over-
a block plane. (See the chart on page 77 for taper steaming can lead to failure
dimensions.) as surely as under-steaming.
May/June 2016 75
3/21/16 1:49 PM
 7.
7. The bending jig. This little birthday
cake is my bending jig. It consists of a
5-diameter plywood disc on top, fastened
to a larger plywood disc below it and then
to an underlying plywood base that can be
clamped to a workbench. To hold the stave
as youre bending, either drill large holes
like the one on the left for clamping or drill
small holes around the perimeter, as shown,
so nails can be stuck in like cribbage pegs to
hold the stave in place.
The rotating lever on top is something
we developed at Mystic Seaport when I
worked there, and I have found it helpful but
not always necessary. Bending a stave by
capturing one end in the jig and then grasping
the far end to start the bend can concentrate
forces at the staves weakest point, where
it is most likely to break. The lever with the
rubber caster bolted to it holds the stave tight
to the mold, puts less stress on the wood, and
allows smoother, easier bending.
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Making Mast Hoops 250-AdFinal.indd 76
8. 10.
10. Finishing the bend. When the bend
8. Starting the bend. Here, the bending
reaches its starting place, you have to
has begun, with the feather-edge of the
remove nails or clamps one at a time so
inside taper on the stave held by the
that the outer part of the scarf can bend
nails stuck into predrilled holes.
around the inner part.
9. 11. Riveting. The diameter of the copper
rivets should be less than one-third of
the sided dimension of the stave, in
this case No. 14 rivets driven in holes
predrilled
with a No. 45 11.
9. Bending slowly around the jig. As bit. (They are
my right hand holds the stave tight to peened over
the lower disc of the jig, my left hand No. 15 flat
provides the bending power through copper burrs
the lever. There is pressure to do this in a later
quickly, because the wood cools off step.) The
rapidly; however, I have found that holes in the
slower bending yields less breakage. edge of the
People more often go too fast than jig allow nail
too slow. clearance.
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 Researching Mast Hoops
T he Herreshoff mast hoop (see chart, below) had an high. (See more about Pert Lowell in WB No. 65 and at
inside diameter 11 percent greater than the mast diam- www.pertlowell.com. Another source of mast hoops is R&W
eter. Its height-to-thickness ratio was 5:4. These numbers Rope Co., www.rwrope.com, which carries laminated ash
varied significantly from ratios I found when researching mast hoops made by Davey & Company.)
mast hoops in 1999 while working at Mystic Seaport. Before Though commercially available laminated hoops are
making mast hoops for the schooner AMISTAD, I studied thicker overall, they are made up of thinner layers which,
numerous examples in the museum collections and came unless glued together, flex more, and seem to fail more
up with the following ratios: often from fatigue than single-layer hoops. In our experi-
The hoops inside diameter is about 20 percent ence, the traditional mast hoop is more likely to break dur-
greater than the masts diameter. ing the initial bending; the non-glued laminated hoop is
The thickness is 24th of the inside diameter.
1 more likely to break in service. WS
The height is 50 percent greater than
the thickness. Herreshoff Mast Hoop Drawing
Specification Formula
The length of the scarfs equals the Maximum diameter of mast (MD) 4 12 MD
inside diameter. Inside diameter of hoop (ID) 5 ID = 1.11 MD
AMISTADs hoops had an inside diameter of 24", were Molded dimension of hoop (M) 1
4 M = 0.05 ID
1" thick, 112" high, and made from 99"-long staves with Sided dimension of hoop (S) 5
16 S = 1.25 M
a 24" scarf. Inside taper to feather-edge (IT) 5 12 IT = 1.1 ID
Pert Lowell began making mast hoops of similar pro- Length of outside taper (OT) 6 34 OT = 1.35 ID
portions in the 1940s but thought of a way to reduce Thickness at end of outside taper (TOT) 18 greater of 13 M or 18
breakage: instead of one layer scarfed at the ends, he Total length (TL) 22 12 TL = 4.5 ID
made mast hoops of thinner stock that wrapped around Bend ratio (BR) 1
4M:2.5R BR = 1:10
several times. For that 24" mast hoop, he used two staves
188" long, both 516" thick, wrapped 212 times, including This chart shows the dimensions and a derived formula from
the scarfs. This gives a luxurious bend ratio of over 1:38 Herreshoff Manufacturing Company plan No. 8012 that can be
and results in a finished mast hoop 114" thick and 134" used to scale mast hoops up or down to suit any mast.

Fairing compounds
Laminating compounds

Tri-Tex co inc.

1-800-363-2660
www.tritex.com

May/June 2016 77

Making Mast Hoops 250-AdFinal.indd 77 3/21/16 1:50 PM

 13. Removing the hoop. After the
12. 13. wood has cooled, remove the lever
and then pry the hoop from the jig as
shown, with the rivets still in place.
Before riveting, reverse the nails so
that their heads are inside the hoop, so
the end to be peened sticks outward.

14.

12. Riveting near the end of the taper.

The Herreshoff drawing specifies the
locations of three rivets. Because the
end of the outer taper runs past the
last rivet, that end of the scarf is left
heavy18 in this case, which is half
the stave thicknessso that a rivet
can be driven very close to the end
of the scarf.

14. The finished hoop. The finished hoop doesnt have to be perfect; misaligned
scarfs and small feathers as seen here can be tended to later. This wood is
discolored from having orange shellac applied before steaming to slow its cooling.
Scrubbing with alcohol and sanding will clean it up.

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Making Mast Hoops 250-AdFinal.indd 78 3/21/16 1:50 PM

 15. When hoops go bad. In steam-bending, occasional failure is expected. In this broken

15. hoop, the dark flecks you see in the oak are the medullary rays, and this stave has split
along the places where the rays run off the edge of the stock. If this stave had been riven
or sawn so that it was perfectly parallel to the medullary rayswith not a single ray
running outthis break wouldnt have happened.

record, he replied, The bend ratio of
almost all mast hoops of normal pro-
portion is terrible. Of all the thousands
of frames Ive bent, the breakage rate
is probably a fraction of 1 percent,
Trust them and use them, if they suit your
boat. Buying them is a sensible option
(see sidebar for sources), but if you choose
to make your own dainty yacht hoops like
those of a century ago, just realize that

I
made three batches of a dozen
staves each and tried to bend them
into Herreshoff mast hoops, and
with each batch I was more careful and
tried more tricks than the time before.
In the first batch, I did things quick-
and-dirty, and broke half of them. In
the second batch, I broke every single
stick, due to a bad kink in the grain of
that piece of stock, invisible until too
late. In the third batch, I did everything
as perfectly as I knew how, and broke
halfthe same as my first attempt.
This yielded 12 hoops in 36 attempts;
a failure rate of 67 percent.
I am not sure what to conclude from
this, except for increased humility and
respect for hoop-makers of old. When I
told Ed McClave about my poor success
because weve always been careful to
select the wood and keep the bend
ratio reasonable [see WB No. 187].
But for mast hoops, different story
I always seem to break quite a few no
matter what.
The bend ratio he mentions is the
relationship of the thickness of a stave
to the radius of the bend. A 1:12 ratio is
about the tightest bend you can expect
from simple steam-bent woodthat
is, a 1"-thick stave bent to a 12" radius.
The Herreshoff mast hoop, though
delicate, has a bend ratio of 1:10, the
equivalent of bending a 1" stave to a
10" radius, which is right at the limit of
what wood can do. Theres no margin
for imperfect stock.
Mast hoops are great, simple devices.
its not a case of a lot of careful work or
accepting that a large percentage will
breakits probably both. The 36 staves
I milled to make 12 finished hoops came
from a piece of oak 2" 3" 23", or less
than one board-footso I broke about
$1 worth of wood. Splurge on $10 of oak,
and you can practice hoop-bending all
day. In every task, even making silly little
mast hoops, the difficulty is proportional
to the feeling of accomplishment and
pride when you winin this case when
your hoops are gleaming in the sun
beneath their spar varnish.
Wade Smith is a boatbuilder at Snediker Yacht
Restoration in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, and
teaches at the WoodenBoat School in Brooklin,
Maine.

May/June 2016 79

Making Mast Hoops 250-AdFinal.indd 79 3/21/16 1:50 PM

 DIAMOND
A modern interpretation
of an 1897 design
by Charles Sibbick
by Nigel Sharp

DIAMOND
LOA 20' 10"
LWL 13' 5"
Beam 4' 11"

JAKE SUGDEN
Draft 3' 3"
Displacement 827 lbs
Sail area 190 sq ft

M
artin Nott became an aficionado of the work of
English yacht designer Charles Sibbick at first
by accident but soon with a will, and his pas-
sion for this designers legacy has only intensified over
the years. It all began for him in 2006, when he sold a
33' motorboat and bought the 36' gaff cutter WITCH,
designed and built by Sibbick in 1902 and in need of
restoration. As the years went by, his dedication to the
project, and to classic yachts in general, deepened, and
eventually he enrolled at the Lyme Regis Boat Build-
ing Academy. He had become a self-confessed Sib-
bick nut, and in 2011 he undertook a school project
to build a 21' version of the designers 1897 DIAMOND,
reconstructing her lines based on surviving records.
I accidentally bought WITCH, he said, because
she looked quite interesting and I liked the name,
which had a link with my old university college. She
was in poor condition, so Martin moved her to a shed
in Cowes, about 100 yards from where she was built.
After nearly nine years of work, his restoration came to
a tragic end when WITCH became one of the nearly 70
yachts destroyed in a January 2016 boatyard fire. DIA-
MOND, however, survived, and Martins dedication to
Sibbicks legacy was undiminished.
As Martins work was progressing on WITCH, he
began to look into the history of the yacht and, in
particular, the man who had produced her. At age 40,
Sibbick (18491912) transitioned from residential con-
struction to designing and building yachts, and dur-
ing 24 years of operation his boatyard in Cowes built
300 racing and cruising yachts, many of them of his
own design. Until the Cowes fire, WITCH was among
some 20 of his yachts to survive. One racing yacht that
Martin encountered during his work on WITCH was

Above The research into the original configuration of the slender, fin-keeled DIAMOND of 1897 extended to its Solent
rig, a kind of hybrid between lug and gunter in which the high-peaked spar is hoisted by its halyard but its lower end is not
attached to the mast.

80 WoodenBoat 250

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 the 43' cutter BONA FIDE of 1899 (see WB No. 180), a
very early example of a fin-keeled boat, which had been
restored in Italy in 2003 for her owner, yacht designer
Doug Peterson. In his research, Martin found a num-
ber of books with more references to Sibbick and one
of themSailing Boats from Around the World, The Classic
1906 Treatise by Henry Coleman Folkard (Dover Mari-
time, 2012)published a profile drawing of the 1897
DIAMOND, an 18' Linear Rater.

I
n Sibbicks times, racing yachts were classified by a
simple rating formula: Waterline length multiplied

by sail area, divided by 6,000. Previously, yacht rac-
ing ratings were based on tonnage measurements, but
changes were advocated soon after the 1875 formation
of the Yacht Racing Association (YRA , now the Royal
Yachting Association). It was the YRAs first secretary,
the influential Dixon Kemp, who formulated the new
so-called length and sail area rating that replaced the
tonnage rating system. Kemps rule wasnt adopted in
Britain until 1886, although a modified version of it,
the Seawanhaka Rule, was put into effect in America
four years earlier. Its simple formula gave its name to
the various classes that ranged in size from Half Raters
(typically about 23' overall) to the 20 Raters (around
65'). Most of the boats Sibbick designed were Raters.
Large numbers of these Raters were built and keenly
raced in Britain over the following decade, but they
were so extreme that they were unsuitable for anything
else. Typically, they had lightweight skimming-dish
hulls with generous sail plans andway ahead of their
timefin keels and ballast bulbs, an innovation that
Sibbick used not only on DIAMOND of 1897 but also on
BONA FIDE , two years later. In 1896, in an attempt to
halt the development of such extreme boats, the YRA
introduced the Linear Rating Rule, which included a
girth measurement intended to put an end to skimming-
dish hulls. However, the Linear Rating failed to achieve
its declared aimas shown by the original DIAMOND,
which was built to this rule. After ratings based on length
and sail area were replaced throughout Europe by the
1907 International Rule, Sibbicks prominence waned.
Sibbick built the original DIAMOND on speculation
and exhibited her at the International Yachting Exhibi-
tion at the Imperial Institute
in Kensington. The event
celebrated Queen Victorias
NIGEL SHARP
Martin Nott, working with fellow student Alastair Munro,
reconstructed DIAMOND in 2011 while enrolled at the Lyme
Regis Boat Building Academy in Lowestoft, England.
Diamond Jubilee, hence the boats name. A Russian,
Count Garassimoff, bought her and took her to Nice,
France, to enjoy some Mediterranean racing, after which
he took her to Russia. She has never been heard of since.
Although Folkards drawing inspired Martin to build
a new DIAMOND, he didnt have nearly enough informa-
tion to do so. However, while researching in the Cruis-
ing Associations library just before he enrolled at the
Boat Building Academy, he found a lines plan for a Half
Rater, along with a table of offsets and various other
details, in an 1895 issue of Yachting World. Although
he decided to base his new boat on this information,
when he lofted it full-size he made some changes. One
was forced on him by restrictions in workshop space,
which determined that the boats length would have
to be reduced from 23' to 21'. His other modifications
were to make her a bit more Sibbick-like, for instance
by increasing the curve of her stem and changing the
shapes of underwater appendages. There were things he
had noticed in various drawings and photographs and
on boats such as BONA FIDE. Even though Martins new
boat technically would be an undersized Half Rater as
opposed to a Linear Rater, he felt that in spirit, at least,
she would be a near-replica of the 1897 DIAMOND.

Drawing on historical research

and studies of surviving boats
designed by Charles Sibbick,
Nott reconstructed the lines of
DIAMOND. He was faithful to
the spirit of the original, which
was launched in 1897, but some
interpretation was necessary.
One required change was to
MARTIN NOTT

reduce the overall length from

23' to 20' 10"the maximum
length that would fit into the
available construction space.

May/June 2016 81

DIAMOND250-EdFinal.indd 81 3/23/16 5:57 PM

 NIGEL SHARP (both)
Above left The elegant scrollwork at DIAMONDs bow, typical of Sibbicks style for racing yachts, was rescaled from the
36' yacht HEARTSESE, one of some 20 yachts designed by Sibbick that still survive today. Above right The new DIAMONDs
cockpit is sparely appointed, with only port and starboard seats for the helmsman.

A
t that time, Martin had never actually seen a
Half Rater, but Academy Director Tim Gedge
mentioned that he had a friend who had built
onea strip-planked reconstruction of the 1892 N.G.
Herreshoffdesigned WEE WINN and that she was
just half an hours drive away. Martin jumped at the
chance to see her. The way he had built her was pretty
much exactly what I was planning to do, Martin told
me, but it was very reassuring to see her and know that
she had been sailing for 10 years and that everything
worked. Martin has since taken the opportunity to
visit the original WEE WINN at the Herreshoff Marine
Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island.
Having settled on a design, Martin and fellow stu-
dent Alistair Munro began the construction by lofting
the hull and setting up 14 temporary molds, upside-
down. Over these they set up the sapele backbone,
which consisted of 4"-wide solid pieces for the relatively
straight part of the keel from the maststep aft, while
the long, gently curved inner stem was laminated from
eight 18"-thick layers. The hull was then plankedstart-
ing at the sheer and working toward the centerline
with 38"-thick edge-glued western red cedar strips with
bead-and-cove edges.
After the planking, the hull was faired and the exte-
rior sheathed with fiberglass cloth set in epoxyone
layer of 350 gsm (10 oz) on the topsides and two layers
below the waterlineand then faired again with epoxy
filler. With the sheathing completed, the exterior was
painted and the hull turned right-side up.
The temporary molds were removed and the
inside was then sheathed to the same specification as
the outsidethis time by vacuum-bagging, not only
for strength but also to minimize the chances of an
opaque appearance, since Martin wanted the interior
to look as much like a wooden boat as possible. The
vacuum-bagging also provided a good experience for
all the students in the course. The interior structure
was then fitted: six floor timbers; seven steam-bent oak
frames (more for cosmetic than structural reasons,
since they hid temporary screw holes); and three plywood
bulkheads, two of which are watertight.
The deck structure consists of a 238" 34" sapele
beam shelf, deckbeams laminated from western red
cedar, a 14" plywood subdeck overlaid with 14"-thick
Alaska yellow cedar planks and varnished khaya cover-
ing boards. The cedar planks are slightly swept, tapered,
and fitted into the covering boards, which was labor-
intensive but best represents the Sibbick appearance,
according to the evidence Martin observed on WITCH
and in various old photographs. Martin chose khaya
for the cockpit coamings, which have decorative
moldings inside and out, and also for the toerails,
two cockpit seats for the helmsman, a thwart for
the crew, and cockpit f loorboards.
The ballast keel was made of a 38"-thick stainless-
steel fin welded to 14" L-shaped plates forming a pair
of flanges that were bolted through the hull planking
and floors with six 38" stainless-steel bolts each side.

Designer Sibbick was an early advocate of fin keels with

ballast bulbs, which were radical innovations in the late-19th
century. The new DIAMOND has a stainless-steel fin and a
187-lb lead bulb, cast in halves and bolted to it.

82 WoodenBoat 250

DIAMOND250-EdFinal.indd 82 3/23/16 5:57 PM


JAKE SUGDEN
The plate assembly, without the bulb, weighed 110 lbs.
To create the lead bulb, two halves were cast and then
encapsulated in fiberglass and epoxy, after which they
were bolted onto the bottom of the fin. Their total
weight was 187 lbs, about 20 lbs of which came from
melted-down cockpit drains and seacocks removed
during WITCHs restoration. Martin was determined
that some small part of the toil of Sibbicks men should
directly contribute to his new boat.
All of DIAMONDs deck and rigging fittings look tra-
ditional but some had to be custom-made. The tiller,
for example, was cast from a modified stanchion pat-
tern. The mainsheet traveler, too, was purpose-made.
The Sitka spruce spars were made at the Academy. Mar-
tin himself built the hollow mast, and other students
made the solid boom and gaff during a weeklong spar-
and oar-making course. Martin considered making the
blocks also, but decided to buy them insteadwooden
ones at deck level for show and Tufnol at the masthead
to save weight aloft. Because I always planned to sell
the boat when I finished her, I didnt want to cut cor-
ners, he told me. A coin collection he inherited from
his grandfather included an 1897 penny, which Martin
epoxied into the maststep before stepping the mast.
I
met Martin on the Academys Launch Day in June
2011, but almost four years went by before I had a
chance to join him to sail DIAMOND in Yarmouth
on the Isle of Wight. Although the day began wet and
windy, the forecast was for an improvement and, sure
enough, by midday the sun was shining and the wind
seemed to be moderating. So we rigged the boat and
decided we would sail within the confines of the rela-
tively sheltered harbor, although both of us, I think,
had silent misgivings about setting sail at all that day,
as there was still plenty of wind. We moved DIAMOND
DIAMOND250-EdFinal.indd 83
Although her low ballast keel bulb helps her
stand up to a breeze, DIAMONDs low freeboard
and ample sail area make her best suited to light
winds.
to a pontoon, where she was head-to-wind,
and hoisted the sails while Martin explained
the correct name for her rig: Although some
people may think it is gunter or lug, it is nei-
ther, because the yard is not attached to the
mast and essentially stays aft of it when its set
up correctly. Its proper name is the Solent rig
which, according to Folkard, first came into
general use amongst the small racing yachts
on the Solent in the year 1889.
By feathering the mainsail, we were able
to beat out of the narrow gap between two
pontoons with relative ease, but as soon as I
bore away toward more open water and the
mainsail filled, a gust hit usa good Force
6, I should thinkand things became tricky.
A slight mainsheet tangle momentarily
confused things, but by this time I realized
that this was simply not the right day to sail
this boat. Seeing an empty pontoon space
just upwind of us, I steered DIAMOND alongside it and
we dropped the sails. It was frustrating for both of us,
especially as the forecast for the next few days was not
much better. However, soon afterward I caught up with
Alistair Munro, who has sailed DI A MOND consider-
ably more often than Martin has, and he told me about
his experiences.
Although Alistair has singlehanded DIAMOND, with
the sail reefed, in 20 knots, he agreed that she is best
suited for light winds. He described her as light on the
tiller, well balanced, and very steerable, but at the
same time, her short fin keel contributed to a lack of
directional stability. So the biggest problem when single-
handed, he reported, was not being able to let go of
the tiller, even for a split second, to do anything else.
He found it a stretch, but possible, for a solo helmsman
to reach the jibsheets. The running backstay lines were
easily within graspand the stays themselves are far
enough forward so that the leeward one doesnt have to
be eased when working to windward.
When I stepped aboard, I could sense the inherent
stability provided by the heavy lead bulb, so it was no
surprise when Alistair told me that he hasnt known her
to heel beyond putting her covering board in the water.
On one occasion he sailed DIAMOND with his father,
a very accomplished sailor who was initially critical of
the way the rig had been set up, but enjoyed the sail
enormously after making a few adjustments.
Listening to Alistair describe DIAMONDs performance
made me hope that I might one day sail her in the kind
of breeze that would suit her best.
A lifelong sailor, Nigel Sharp is a freelance marine writer and pho-
tographer who also spent 35 years in managerial roles in the boat-
building and repair industry. He has logged thousands of miles in a
great variety of boats, including his own Nordic Folkboat.
May/June 2016 83
3/23/16 5:51 PM
 When Caulking Comes Before Planking
Vacuum-bagging pre-made sections of decking
makes for a clean job
Text by Brion Rieff Photographs by Tom Jackson

A
RROW, which I designed based on L. Francis Her-
reshoffs ARAMINTA and built in 1998, has been
in continuous use since then. Now in the hands
of a new owner, she came back to my shop last fall for
what you might call cosmetic or aesthetic work. Most
of this was straightforwardrepainting the deck and
renewing its nonskid surface, stripping old varnish off
the cabinsides and cockpit coamings to renew its
luster with six new coats of varnish, and repainting
the topsides.
But it was also clear that the time had come to
replace the teak cockpit seats and cockpit sole. These
were originally made of 14"-thick teak planks 4" wide,
edge-glued to each other and then glued down to a
plywood substrate. Seventeen years of continuous use
had worn the teak paper-thin in places, and the edges
of the teak had chipped around the hatches. In other
spots, the teak was wearing down close to the glueline.
Sanding would have rejuvenated the appearance, and
the owner could have gotten maybe another season out
of it, but sanding would have taken off even more thick-
ness. Sooner or later, there would be a risk of wearing
through to the plywood below. Replacement was the
best course.
Originally, the teak veneers in ARROWs cockpit
didnt have caulking seams. The veneers were simply

AboveFor a cosmetic refit of the 32 yawl ARROW s cockpit, new 38-thick teak strips were laid out and edge-glued with
tenacious caulking to make panels that could easily be vacuum-bagged into position to emulate a traditional laid deck.
InsetOriginal teak veneers had nearly worn through since the author built the boat in 1998.

84 WoodenBoat 250

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 epoxied together to appear as a single, wide piece. They
were laid up over a meranti plywood substrate made up
of two 38" layers for the seats and one 12" layer for the
cockpit sole. These substrates, coated as they were with
epoxy, were still in very good shape, so the new owner
and I saw a chance to not only make repairs but to
improve the aesthetics by using 38"-thick and 134"-wide
teak strips with 14"-wide caulking seams filled with black
caulking compound. The new look would be first-rate,
much like a traditional laid deck, and would complement
all the effort put into renewing the brightwork.
This resheathing was the most challenging part
of the project. But we greatly simplified the work by
making up sections of decking ahead of time, off the
boat. We made accurate patterns of the areas to be
sheathed, then made up slightly oversized deck sections
1.
Photo 1Mike Moros
(who manages
WoodenBoat Schools
shop during summers)
started off by carefully
fitting three 14 plywood
patterns. One spanned the width of the cockpit aft and
butted against the aft bulkhead, and the other two followed
the curve of the port and starboard seats and butted against
the forward bulkhead as well as the previous pattern. Inset
Notations on the patterns showed the exact locations of
things such as hinges, hatches, and the mizzenmast. The
two diagonal lines are used to line up the pieces on the
workbench later. The original teak veneers under the side
decks were not worn, so we retained them.
Teak Plank Panels 250-AdFinal.indd 85
of individual planks separated by a uniform 14", then
filled these seams with adhesive caulk made by Teak
Deck Systems. After a couple of days of curing, the indi-
vidual deck sections could be handled very much like
plywood panels, which allowed us to focus on accurate
planning and cutting.
Vacuum-bagging is a great way to install this kind
of sheathing, and making up caulked panels ahead of
time simplifies the work. If we were vacuum-bagging
individual planks to be caulked later, the epoxy would
partly fill the seams, and then somebody would have
to come back with a tool to clean out the cured glue
before caulking. By making the whole panel up on the
bench, all we have to do after vacuum-bagging is to
clean up the perimeter. For me, thats the main reason
for using this method.
2.
Photo 2Using the patterns, we determined the layout of
the panels and laid out the strips following the patternin
this case, for a panel that runs the length of the cockpit
and the curvature and width of the side seat, minus trim.
Spacers of 14 plywood guaranteed a uniform seam width.
The planks were wedged together from the sides to keep
the setup tight. Lead bricks held everything down. When
ready, Mike hot-glued crossbars down to hold the spacing.
May/June 2016 85
3/22/16 6:18 PM
 Photo 3Using Photo 5On the workbench, Mike lined up the new panels
3. a power caulking on the patterns. In the middle part of the aft seat, we
gun, Mike filled the planned one broad panel with an even number of planks,
seams with caulk, which would then be cut down the middle. Each side
taking out spacers piece was glued to its corresponding side panel, leaving a
as he went along centerline gap that would be filled by a kingplank. Careful
and making sure to work both in planning how pieces fit together and how
fill the space under margin boards, bullnose pieces, and trim would fit with
the crossbars. The the run of the strips paid off later. The curved piece visible
best way to fill a at the lower left is a margin board laminated up of four
seam is to push half-width teak planking pieces, with the grain matched as
the caulking gun, well as possible to
rather than drag it. look like a full-width
In my experience, plank. Later, pieces
one advantage of were added to the
caulking the seams margin boards to
before gluing down widen them because
the strips is that the we came up with a
caulk adheres to the change in the layout
seam for its full depth. After each seam was filled, Mike used and decided that
a putty knife to force the caulking deeply into place (as has slightly wider margin
been done on the first two seams shown here) to make sure boards would look
there would be no voids. A sheet of plastic under the panel better.
keeps it from being glued to the workbench.

4.
5.

6.

Photo 6We planned to nib the planks into the margin

Photo 4It takes two days for the caulking to cure fully.
During that time, Mike worked on fairing mating surfaces
on the boat, then came back to work on the panels again. He
used a heat gun to loosen the hot glue on the crossbars and a
putty knife to pry them off. An 8 sander-grinder with 60-grit
discs made short work of the excess caulking, taking care to
sand as little of the wood as possible.
boards to avoid feather edges and to give the planking a
traditional look. Its the right thing to do. Here, Mike laid
out the nibs to blend in well with neighboring pieces, for
example the seat hatches and a wide athwartships strip that
fits under the mainsheet traveler. Especially at the hatches,
we didnt want to leave a small piece of a nib extending past
the hatch seam where it would look out of place. The nibs
also matched side-to-side, in mirror image.

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 Photo 7After cutting
10. Photo 10Once all the cutting
and finishing the and finishing were done, the
outboard side of the margin board (port side in this
first panel, including case) was aligned with the
its nibs, Mike cut to the planking panel using spacers.
line and finished off Lead bricks hold things in place,
the edges with a block ready for crossbars to be hot-
plane, chisel plane, and glued to hold the spacing while
sandpaper. Then he the seam was filled with caulking,
transferred the shapes making it part of the panel.
to the opposite side
and made the same
cuts there. Next,
he traced the
outboard profile
11.
of the seat panels
directly onto the
7. margin board, as
shown here.

Photo 8After
tracing the profile
of the panel, Mike
marked another line
on the margin board
exactly 14 outboard
of the traced line to
allow for the caulking
seam. Then he used
a sabersaw to cut Photo 11During test-fitting, more decisions had to be made,
to the outer line and almost all of them based on aesthetics. Here, Mike and I were
cleaned up the edges.
8. puzzling out the fit of the plank located under the mainsheet
traveler. We also talked about the type of trim to use in way of
the mizzenmast, and exactly where to cut the hatches. I knew I
wanted margin boards at the forward and aft ends, but I hadnt
decided on their widths. Its easier to visualize these details
when the panels are in place. I wanted the forward and aft
margin boards to butt tight to the side margins. By this stage,
the two small panels that form part of the aft seat had been
edge-glued with caulking to the long side panels, making the
kingplanks layout clear, and we decided the width of the aft
margin board and the mizzen trim. There are several ways you
could treat it. You could border the hatches out, but Im not a big
fan of bordering everything. I like a more traditional look, based
on what would have been done if it were a real laid deck. Its all
aesthetics, and therein lie some decisions and changes.

9.

Photo 9We used the completed port-side panel
to make a mirror-image for the starboard side.
Fortunately, things on the boat were pretty close to
symmetrical, and any minor errors could be taken up
during the margin boards final fitting. The point of
doing all this fitting so carefully on the workbench,
with lead bricks holding everything in position, was
to fit the margin boards so that we could glue them
to the panels using the adhesive caulking. That way,
we would be final-fitting only one full-length panel
per side, from the cabin bulkhead to the aft bulkhead,
with everything lined up, nice even caulking seams,
and matching grain.
Photo 12While caulking seams
12.
were curing, Mike turned to
surface preparation and fairing.
He used a router to cut a
uniform depth in a checkerboard
pattern, then followed up with
a broad chisel to break out the
pieces. Even though there was
a little variation in the thickness
of the old veneer, we could mill
off an even amount. After that
came sanding. Thats boatbuilding90 percent of it is sanding. And
if Im wrong about 90 percent, then it might be 95.

May/June 2016 87

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 Photo 13After fairing Photo 16Mike
the old surface as
13. 16. started applying
much as possible, the plastic bag,
Mike applied thickened which is big
epoxy to fill low spots. enough to cover
He made a plywood this particular
tool to screed the panel, to the
epoxy to reestablish sealant tape.
the camber of the The outboard
seats, which had side, which is
relaxed over time. After hardest to get at,
two applications and came first. The
a final sanding, shown visible yellow
here, the surface was of the sealant
fair, the camber was tape shows the
right, and we were extent of this
ready to install the new first attachment.
panels. Then we flipped
the plastic up over the coaming to be out of the
way while epoxy was troweled on and the panel
laid down over it. The blue tape visible here made
Photo 14 double-sure that no epoxy would get on the
Having made
14. sealant tape. If that happens, the bag wont seal,
up his beautiful, even if you wipe it off. Its like grease.
long deck panels,
Mike then had
to cut them up.
The clean cut Photo 17Using a
hes making here 1
16-notched trowel,
is along one of Mike spread thickened
the seams of a epoxy on the surfaces,
lift hatch in the making a very even
seat. We planned layer, not too thick.
to protect these Meanwhile, Richard
edges with thin Will had rolled
bronze trim pieces set flush on each side. Cutting out the hatch unthickened epoxy on
openings left us with four separate pieces of panel to vacuum-bag the underside of the
aboard the boat in a single operation. The hatches themselves were four panel sections
easier to vacuum-bag on the workbench. we were going to
vacuum-bag.
17.

Photo 15Preparation
15. for vacuum-bagging
begins with cleaning Photo 18Next,
up the whole area, one of the glued-
then putting down
18. up panels was
paper-backed sealant set in place, with
tape around each the margin board
area to be bagged. butting against the
The idea is to have remaining planking
a continuous air under the side deck
seal, with no breaks. and its forward end
Bagging an awkward butting against the
area can be tricky, and cabin bulkhead. The
no place was trickier than the hole where the mizzenmast passes forward end of the
through the aft seat. Mike put sealant tape around the hole on planking on this
the underside of the seat, then put a small plastic patch over the panel has been cut
hole itself. Next, as shown here, he applied tape to the top of the back to allow room
plastic sheet. The tape also went up onto the bulkheads, then for the forward
down to the side decks. Sealant tape, when being removed, can margin board and a
tear the surface off bare wood, so we first coated the wood under 1
4 caulking seam.
the side decks with epoxy, to be sanded off later.

88 WoodenBoat 250

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 22.
Photo 19After
this first panel 19.
was in placein
this case, the
port aft cornera
cut-to-size layer of
peel-ply was laid
down, followed
by a cut-to-size
breather cloth.
The peel-ply
prevents the cloth
from bonding to
the panel, and the
sole purpose of
the breather cloth Photo 22We planned four separate vacuum bags to be
is to allow air to done simultaneously, two forward and two aft. The aft bags
pass though, for a ended at sealant tape that was placed in the void where the
uniform pressure kingplank was going to go in later. We worked as fast as we
all around the vacuum bag. I like to put a little extra breather could to get the plastic taped in place and everything ready
cloth under the vacuum port, the bottom part of which is to go, checking at the same time to see that the panels were
visible here. Then, the vacuum bag was flipped back into lined up just right.
place, spread over the port fitting, and its edges sealed by
pressing them into against the tape.

23.

20.

Photo 20While peeling the backing off the sealant tape and
simultaneously removing the blue masking tape a few inches
at a time, the plastic vacuum-bags edges were pressed into
the sealant tape, taking care to get a continuous seal. Good
preparation and careful attention prevents leaks.

Photo 21After the Photo 23Once the vacuum pump was turned on, we could
bag was sealed to our see right away if we had any leaks even without looking
satisfaction, we poked at the gauge. If you grab a wrinkle and you cant pick it up,
a hole in the plastic and youve got a good seal. If you can pick it up, you have a leak.
joined the bottom part On the port side aft, we had a few leaks, and chased them
of the vacuum port with down. Richard, working from the aft deck, found out that
the top part, sandwiching the sealant tape had taken the paint off the bulkhead, which
the bag in between. This caused one of the main leaks. I worked under the seat to
section was now ready check the mizzen patch. If you have air leakage, the trick is to
for the vacuum pump to 21. not give up, but to be tenacious about it and find the leaks.
be turned on. Then, all a sudden, whump, youve got it.

May/June 2016 89

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 Variations on the theme
W e use pre-made panels in a vari-
ety of ways. At the same time that
ARROWs cockpit seats and sole were
plank. The V-notched side will be var-
nished while the panel is on the bench,
which is much easier than the tedious
being redone, we also vacuum-bagged work of varnishing after installation.
western red cedar bulkhead panels and Then, the panels will be installed varnish-
edge-glued deck panels for a new boat side down, epoxied and screwed to the
of my design that were building for a deckbeams and sheer clamp. From
San Francisco client. below, it will look like a laid deck, and
In the background, the vacuum-bag it will need only one more coat of var-
Ive set up was for an interior bulkhead nish. After the first layer is done, two
of western red cedar. The lamination 1
8" diagonal layers and a final 18" fore-
consists of two fore-and-aft outer lay- and-aft layer will be vacuum-bagged
ers of 14" and two inner layers of 18" on in a single operation, for a total of
opposing diagonals. This gives me a 34" 5
8" of thickness. The deck will then
bulkhead that is stiffer and stronger be sheathed in fiberglass cloth set in
than plywood. It is also lighter, at 1.44 epoxy and painted with a nonskid
lbs per square foot compared to ply- texture (see WB No. 222).
wood at 2.28 lbs for 34", 1.85 lbs for 58", and even 1.5 One advantage of making up this kind of deck panel
for 12". is that were working with lumber thats 12' to 16' long,
In the foreground, 14" western red cedar tongue-and- as opposed to 8' plywood that would have to be scarfed,
groove planks have been edge-glued to make panels for which presents problems of its own. The V-notching is
the first layer of decking for the same boat. Because of easier to do on these panels than on plywood, and it
the compound curvature due to the decks camber and gives a better result. And its also amazing how stiff a
sheer, this layer is made up in two halves so the deck deck built this way is. With 12" plywood, I would have to
will lie down firmly. The 5"-wide planks are V-grooved have deckbeams every 12"and that would be stretch-
at the seams and, for appearance, have an identical ing it. With this 58" panel, the deckbeams can have twice
V-notched false seam along the centerline of each that spacing. BR

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90 WoodenBoat 250

Teak Plank Panels 250-AdFinal.indd 90 3/22/16 6:19 PM

 24.
Photo 24After all the vacuum bags were checked
and rechecked for leaks, we left the vacuum pump
on overnight, pressing down with 14.7 lbs per
square inch on the panels while the epoxy cured.
The seat hatches and cockpit sole pieces were
also vacuum-bagged, but they were done on the
workbench, since they were much simpler.
Teak Plank Panels 250-AdFinal.indd 91
25.
Photo 25After the epoxy cured, only minor cleanup was needed,
after which the remaining pieces were fitted and glued in place
individually. Here, the kingplank between the aft seat panels takes
shape, soon to be followed by fitted pieces fitting around the box-
sectioned mizzenmast, rails on the sides, a piece under the mainsheet
traveler, and bullnose pieces along the edge of the cockpit seats.
Caulking these final seams finished the job.
Brion Rieff is the proprietor of Brion Rieff Boat Building, 76 Flye Point Rd., Brooklin, ME
04616; 2073594455; www.rieffboats.net.
ROCKPORT MARINE
BUILDING, RESTORING, AND DESIGNING
1 MAIN STREET | ROCKPORT, MAINE | 207-236-9651
WWW.ROCKPORTMARINE.COM
May/June 2016 91
3/22/16 6:29 PM
 The Two-pointers
of Dead Creek

A traditional
trapping skiff

CREDIT TK
from Vermont
by Douglas Brooks

E
arl Bessette owns an old, leather-bound ledger book, which he
retrieved during one of our conversations about life on his Vermont
family farm and the boats he built and used for trapping fur-bearing
animals. I want to show you something, he said, rising from his chair. He
returned with the ledger, which begins in 1942 when he was only 12 years
old. For nearly 40 years, he recorded every single bird or animal he trapped
or shot in the marshes, woods, and fields surrounding his dairy farm in
New Haven, often while poling his small skiff along the waterways. Over 120
deer antler racks are fastened to the wall of his machine shop, and dozens
of rusting beaver and muskrat traps hang in clusters from nails throughout
the barns.
Reading Earls ledger, it becomes clear how families like his literally
scoured the surrounding landscape, often using boats they built them-
selves, for additional income and food as the Great Depression years wore
on. Skunks, beaver, muskrat, bobcat, and foxes were skinned for their pelts,
their carcasses thrown away, and everything else was taken for the table.
The only thing I could never trap were foxes, Earl remembers. My father
said I wasnt slick enough, meaning I couldnt keep the traps clean of
my scent. You have to boil your fox traps, otherwise they wont come near
them. The money from a few weeks of trapping in the fall and spring was
absolutely necessary to the farms survival. Earls father almost lost the
farm in the late 40s after a barn fire in midwinter forced him to sell
his herd of dairy cows.

Jason Hatch poles a replica of his grandfathers

DOUGLAS BROOKS

trapping boat on Dead Creek in Addison County,

Vermont. The boat was built by Middlebury
College students based on one of six
trapping boats Gerald Hatch built
between 1950 and 1972.

92 WoodenBoat 250

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 Earl Bessette stores a trapping boat he built in 1960
in his barn. He used the boat to trap several miles
of creek near his dairy farm. On the wall behind the
boat are his snowshoes and muskrat traps.

abruptly in the sternlike sharpiesto aid

them in backing out of the cattails.
Pat recalls his father building boats by bend-
ing a pair of 14"-wide pine side planks around
DOUGLAS BROOKS

a single center mold, attaching the planks to

Raymond Bud Bodette, now in his 80s, recalls
that back in his fathers day a single winter prime
muskrat pelt, which has its thick spring coat, brought
more money than a days work at average wages. His
uncle Archie built trapping boats and carved decoys.
Bodette and Pat Hatch both grew up on dairy farms
in the broad Champlain Valley of Addison County. All
these farms had humble beginnings. Bodettes grand-
father tried raising Belgian workhorses in addition to
milking. He had 17 horses and 12 cows, but the advent
of the tractor nearly bankrupted him. Bodette can see
Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks beyond from his
farmhouse, and Hospital Creek to the east. The Hatch
farm sits alongside Dead Creek, a long inland waterway
running for miles parallel to the lakeshore, connecting
numerous marshes before it empties into Otter Creek,
and it was on these waterways that the trapping skiffs
served a crucial role. Muskrat trapping was so impor-
tant to the Hatches that Pats father Gerald used to hire
workers to milk his cows during the spring trapping
season so he and his sons could trap the creek.
stems fore and aft, adding hardwood chines,
rubrails, and a single thwart, and then cross-
planking the bottoms. Hatch admitted the
carpentry was basic and well within his fathers
talents; as a dairy farmer he did plenty of carpentry
maintaining the farm. The biggest obstacles were the
stems and stem rabbets. Gerald hired a local carpenter
who had a tablesaw to make his stems, cut out of 12'
stock so enough would be left over for more stems when
he needed them.
Pat Hatch also has a ledger book, a record of his
work as a fur broker bidding on muskrat pelts from
trappers throughout the region, then selling them
to the wholesale fur buyers. In one season in the late
1960s, over 20,000 muskrat pelts passed through the
Hatch farm. When I marveled at the amount of effort
devoted to trappingbuilding boats, setting traps, bro-
kering fursPat summed it up in a single sentence:
Trapping was our sugaring. Most traditional Vermont
dairy farms are hill farms, and its an old saying here
that maple syrup sales were enough to pay the taxes. In
the lowlands of the Champlain Valley, there were few
sugar maples but plenty of muskrats.

I
met Pat Hatch when a friend of mine told me he
had seen six boats on a local dairy farm, which
turned out to be the Hatch place. I learned that the
boats were all built by Pats father, Gerald Hatch, who
started building boats in the 1950s and built his last in
1972, just before he died. As Pat showed me the boats,
he explained that his father built mostly two-pointers
but also built a couple of more stable flat-sterned mod-
els for his youngest children. Gerald Hatchs boats were
used only for trapping, and they share elements with
other trapping boats I have found. They have no oar-
locks, because one could only pole through the cattails
that filled Dead Creek. Their hulls are also sheathed
below the waterline with sheet metal, of the type com-
monly used for roofing, to protect the planking dur-
ing spring trapping, which coincided with the breakup
of the winter ice. The poles, referred to as duck-billed
poles by some trappers, are shaped like a narrow pad-
dle and fitted with a pair of metal spikes at their tips for
pushing off the ice. Many boats have a wire hook on the
inside for a rifle, because trappers would shoot muskrat
as well as trap them. Hatchs flat-sterned boats rise up
S
OK
RO

High school students at the Patricia Hannaford Career Center measured

SB

and reconstructed this boat, which came from Ferrisburgh, Vermont.

LA
UG
DO

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 Steve Brooks (no relation to the author) and his
father trapped the opposite side of Dead Creek from
the Hatch farm, paying $600 a season to the landowner
for the privilege. His father borrowed Gerald Hatchs
center mold and built a pair of plywood trapping boats
in the 1960s. Their best year was 1969, when A-grade
pelts were fetching $5 apiece and they trapped over
1,800 muskrats with 400 to 600 traps. Like all trappers,
the Brookses would shoot muskrats if they could. He
said in his best day of shooting he got 68 and his father
got 88, all head shots to preserve the pelts. They also
would remove the musk glands from the male musk-
rats, which were used in the perfume-making industry
and brought $40 to $50 a quart.
A
fter giving a lecture at Middlebury College in
2007, I was approached by three students who
said they wanted to build a boat. I had just dis-
covered trapping boats, so I suggested they create an
independent study project in which they would inter-
view trappers and help me take the lines off their boats.
I would help them build a replica. Our first boat was one
of Gerald Hatchs two-pointers. A year later, I led another
Middlebury class in taking the lines of two more boats
and building replicas of them, including one of Hatchs
flat-sterned boats.
Our first interview was with Bud Smith, whose family has
lived in the Champlain Valley since the 1700s. Buds
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94 WoodenBoat 250
Two-Pointers 250-AdFinal.indd 94
father was a dairy farmer and part-time carpenter. Dur-
ing trapping season all the males of the Smith family
would decamp about a mile from their farm to a musk-
rat camp they had built on shores of Hospital Creek, also
known as Tremble Creek. For three weeks every spring
the Smith men would set their traps and check them
through the mornings, then spend all afternoon skin-
ning muskrats and stretching pelts. Unlike the home-
built boats used by other trappers, the Smith family
used a dugout canoe of unknown age. It now hangs in
rafters of Buds kitchen in Middlebury, sheathed in roof-
ing tin like any other trapping boat. Bud talked about
how the trapping season would wind up as the weather
warmed. With the ice finally out, the water would be at
its highest, which means the fish shooters would come
down shooting pike swimming in the shallows. Other
men would walk the bankswe called them boot trap-
persshooting muskrats. Serious trappers like us would
be exhausted, and the drinking would get a little heavy.
Youd be checking traps with rifle fire all around you.
Its a miracle no one ever got hurt.
In 2014, I established a Lake Champlain-wide small-
boat research project in partnership with the Henry
Sheldon Museum of Vermont History (www.henrysheldon
museum.org). Titled In Champlains Wake: The Small
Boat Traditions of Lake Champlain, our first significant
research project was a collaboration with the Patricia
Hannaford Career Center, Addison Countys technical
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 high school. Working in partnership with Jake Burn-
hams advanced science, technology, engineering,
and math students, we interviewed trappers and
brought historic boats into the schools wood shop
for measuring and lofting. After drawing the boats
using computer-assisted design programs, the students
built the replicas.
In 2014, the class collected two trapping boats from
Ferrisburgh, Vermont, both classic two-pointers, along
with a trapping boat from Putnam Station, New York.
The latter looks like a more conventional skiff, because
trappers in that region were often operating right on
Lake Champlain itself. In 2015, we studied Earl Bes-
settes trapping boat, which he built in 1960, along with
a very old and very large boat built by Orville Mulliss of
Bridport at least 75 years ago. Meeting with Bessette at
his farm, Earl told us he copied a neighbors trapping
boat, but he was so concerned about leaking that he
used a 10' sheet of 38" marine plywood for the bottom.
Like the Hatches, Bessette hired a carpenter to make

Like the original builder, Gerald Hatch, students at Middlebury

DOUGLAS BROOKS
College bent the side planks around just a single center
mold to develop the shape of the two-pointer. Hatchs sides
were parallel-edged 34-thick, 14-wide pine boards from the
lumberyard. The rockeror spring as the Vermont builders
call itis governed by the amount of flare in the sides.

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 Students gained practical experience in the use of tools by
such tasks as planing the bottom edges of garboards flat
to receive the bottom planking. On this replica, the bottom
was planked with plywood, matching the technique Earl
Bessette used on his boat of 1960.

his stem. At that point, Earl interrupted our conversation

to go rooting around in his barn, emerging with a long,
narrow piece of darkened oak rabbeted on both sides.

DOUGLAS BROOKS
I told him to make the stem extra long in case I built
another boat. You can have it.
The bottoms of trapping boats, like the stems, were
another challenge to their farmer builders. Some were
caulked with cotton, and if done right these boats could
stay in the water all season. But others were built with- such as decks and camouflage paint schemes, and they
out caulking, and the first job before the season began were refined to perform in a harsh environment.
was to soak them so they would swell tight. John Camp-

bell remembers how his father would space the bottom
boards with a 10-penny nail. You had to know whether
or not your planks would buckle if you left the boat in
the water. Once my fathers boat swelled tight, we always
pulled it out of the water each day. Ray Bodette tells
the story of one of his uncles boats that swelled so tight
that the planks buckled. You couldnt tear enough off
your shirttail to plug the leaks in the bottom.
Trapping boats make excellent projects for students.
Though they may appear simple, it would be a mistake
to describe these boats as crude. Some show niceties
I
recently asked Jason Hatch if he would come and
pole our replica of his grandfathers two-pointer.
Jason was in his early teens when he helped his
grandfather build his last boat, and he still tries to take
it out on the water every summer.
It was a cold, windy, and uncomfortable day on Dead
Creek when we met up. The creek had ice at its margins
where Jason put in. He stepped aboard, standing with
one foot wedged in the stern, leaving the forward half
of the bottom clear of the water. Jason shot away from
the bank, pushing his duck-bill pole with all his might,

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 In 201415, high-school students documented boats
built by Orville Mulliss and Earl Bessette, shown in the
foreground, and then built new boats to the plans they
developed. The project will look at two more historic boats
starting in fall 2016.

The two-pointers of Dead Creek were functional tools

for their farmer owners. With Yankee self-sufficiency
and pluck, they developed a type of boat that matched
their skills and their needs. They were creative, and
DOUGLAS BROOKS

their inspiration came from their immediate surround-

the stern of the boat almost buried in the waves. Bud
Bodette told me you always pole a trapping boat from
one side; carefully heeled, it would track straight as an
arrow. Jason demonstrated this, and when he turned he
let the wind carry him home, using the blade of his pole
to steer his way in. It was an impressive performance.
Another trapper told me a good boat had to have just
the right amount of spring to the bottom, which was
essential to stability and performance. I had to ask what
spring was but finally realized he was describing lon-
gitudinal bottom curvature, or what most boatbuilders
know as rocker.
ings. Plenty of finely built boats were produced for Lake
Champlain, but they would have been a world apart and
unaffordable to local trappers. Until nearly the end of
the trapping era in the 1980s, trappers persisted in
building their own boats. They drew inspiration from
their habitat and spoke their own vernacular. At the
end of my conversation with Pat Hatch, I interrupted
him as he was telling me about his fathers two-pointers
to ask whether he had ever heard the phrase double-
ender.
No, he replied, whats that?
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 LAUNCHINGS T hese pages, along with the Boat Launchings
section of www.woodenboat.com, are dedi-
cated to sharing recently launched wooden
boats built or restored by our readers. If youve
launched a boat within the past year, please
email us at launchings@woodenboat.com, or
Edited by Robin Jettingho

write us at Launchings, WoodenBoat, P.O.

Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616.

HEATHER KAUFMAN
Please include the following information:
(1) the boats length and beam; (2) the name
of its design class or type; (3) the names of the
designer, builder, owner, and photographer;
(4) your mailing address along with an email
address or phone number; (5) the port or place Last summer, at WoodenBoat School in Brooklin, Maine
of intended use; (6) date of launching; and (www.thewoodenboatschool.com), Mark Kaufman led seven
students in the construction of their own Aleutian baidarkas.
(7) a few sentences describing the construction The class spent a week building the boats and, as you can see
or restoration. (8) Send no more than five here, had them nearly finished by the end of class. A time-
lapse video of the class is at www.woodenboat.com/videos.
photographs (jpg images at 300 dpi) and
enclose a SASE if you want anything returned.

Rex and Kathie Payne have built 16 boats at their home

in Spring Hill, Florida, and their latest is the Caledonia
yawl KATHLEEN. They launched her for the first time
last May at the Cedar Key Small Boat Meet in Cedar
Key. Plans of the Iain Oughtred design are available
from www.woodenboatstore.com. Kits are sold by
www.hewesco.com and www.jordanboats.co.uk.
HOLLY BIRD

Donn Constanzo and Bruce Wahl of Wooden Boatworks

(www.woodenboatworks.com) in Greenport, New York, led their
team of boatbuilders in the two-year construction of INVADER, a
replica of the William Fife 8-Meter of the same name designed in
1930. She was launched to great fanfare in July 2015. The owner
is having a second one built, to be christened DEFENDER. He will
race the boats in Oyster Bay, New York.
PETER BRAUN

Kevin Strathy of Sebring, Florida, built this Mia 15 design

from plans by Andrew Walters (www.andrewwaltersdesign.
KEVIN STRATHY

com). Kevin spent 10 months on the construction of the 15' 2"

okoume-plywood-and-epoxy double-cockpit runabout. She is
powered by a 30-hp Honda outboard. Kevin launched her last
September, and enjoys cruising on Floridas inland lakes.

98 WoodenBoat 250

Launchings250-EdFinal.indd 98 3/23/16 2:30 PM

 LAUNCHINGS
MIKE JOHNSON

Last May, at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum farmstead in Mashantucket, Connecticut, members of six First Nation tribes began
building a 36' 30" dugout mishoon (canoe in Wampanoag) under the guidance of Wampanoag canoe builders Jonathan Perry
and Darius Coombs. On August 8, they launched NOOKUMUHS, meaning my grandmother, at Mystic Seaport, after which 12
tribal members paddled 6 miles to Noank and back. Videos and pictures are available at www.pequotmuseum.org.

Alex Low recently launched a Beach Pea, designed by Doug

Hylan (www.dhylanboats.com), which he chose because
he wanted a stable, attractive boat he could use to teach
his daughter to row and sail. Alex, a graduate of Silva Bay
Shipyard School in British Columbia, trimmed out the

BARBARA LOW
plywood hull with ash rails, elm breasthooks, and spruce
spars. Alex and his family row on Georgian Bay, Ontario.

This elegant 16' Gentlemans Runabout, designed by John

Hacker and Nelson Zimmer, was built by Dave Harrison
SARAH HARRISON (BOTH)

of Orangeville, Ontario. In 2010, Dave bought the plans

from The WoodenBoat Store (www.woodenboatstore.
com) and started building FINALLY. The name is a
tribute to the five years Dave spent building the boat
before finally launching her last September at his family
cottage on Buck Lake, Ontario.

Mark Baynes boatbuilding students at Cape Fear Community College

in Wilmington, North Carolina, built and launched six boats last spring.
Among them was this lovely Melonseed skiff, which was strip-planked with
cypress, then sheathed in Dynel set in epoxy. Her deck is Atlantic white
cedar, trim is mahogany and red grandis, and the spars fir. Get Marc
Bartos plans for the Melonseed at www.woodenboatstore.com.
DAVID HARDIN
COURTESY OF BRUCE HOLADAY

Bruce Holaday of Oakland, California, spent every weekend for

nine months building this 11' 2" Shellback dinghy designed by Joel
White. Bruce bought his Shellback kit, built of sapele plywood and
epoxy, from The WoodenBoat Store (www.woodenboatstore.com).
He and his family row and sail PETIT BATEAU on the lakes and bays
of northern California.

May/June 2016 99

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 LAUNCHINGS

Greg Parks designed and built this 15' 6" flat-bottomed

skiff. He bought wood from his local lumberyard and
sealed the boat with Dynel cloth set in polyester resin.
She carries two deep-cycle batteries to power her 55-lb
Minn Kota trolling motor. Greg and his grandchildren use
GREEN LIZARD to fish and explore the creeks of Virginias
GREG PARKS

Eastern Shore. Contact Greg at 7576656966.

In 2012, Bill West of Eureka, Montana, ordered plans for a

Rambler 20 from Harry Bryan, www.harrybryan.com. He built
his boat from western red cedar planking on oak frames with
mahogany trim. Harry called for an inboard motor in his plans,
but Bill beefed up his transom to take an outboard. Besides
exploring his home waters, Bill and his family hope to cruise in
Arizona, Montana, Maine, and parts of Canada.

DONNA WEST
Diane Tucker and her daughter, Julia, enjoy gunkholing in their new
14' Ladybug sailing dinghy, NANCY BLACKETT, in the waters near
their Farmington, Connecticut, home. Diane asked Greg Hopkins of
Nextwave Boat Shop (www.nextwaveboat.com) in Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, to build the plywood-and-epoxy hull. Plans by Jim Michalak
are available from www.jimsboats.com.
JOHN TUCKER

Joe and Laura Koessler, a father and daughter from Buffalo,

New York, had lots of help from the staff of Buffalo Maritime
Center in building this Core Sound 17 cat-ketch. They
started with a kit from B&B Yacht designs of Vandemere,
KYOKO KOESSLER

North Carolina, www.bandbyachtdesigns.com. Joe is teaching

Laura to sail LAURA in the waters near their home.

SHILOH, meaning place of peace, is the name Craig

Bousquet of Albany, New York, chose for his new Argie 15,
CRAIG M. BOUSQUET

a skiff designed by Dudley Dix (www.dixdesign.com). Craig

spent a year building the 15' 6" 5' 6" fiberglass-covered
plywood boat and launched her last June. He plans to sail,
row, and motor her on the Mohawk River, Hudson River,
and Cape Cod.

100 WoodenBoat 250

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 RELAUNCHINGS
In 1954, Richard Berg of Beverly, Massachusetts, built this
plywood Junior dinghy to a design by William D. Jackson.
Richard borrowed the molds from a friend who had stretched
the 8' 6" boat out to 9' 7". Eventually, the dinghy found its way
to Richards nephew, Larry Gaspar, who recently restored it.
He and his family row the Junior on North Pond in Rome,
LARRY GASPAR

Maine. See plans at www.svenson.com.

After working for three years restoring

this 1958, 13' 4" Thompson Sea Skiff, Rich
Rothaupt proudly launched her last summer in
Menomonie, Wisconsin. Rich bought the derelict
boat when her previous owner threatened to
burn it, then replaced the keel, bottom, frames,
splashboards, gunwales, and decks. He also

JAN SPINDLER
restored the 1959 Mercury Mark 58A outboard
that powers her.

WHISPER is a 1958 Knarr-class sloop designed by Erling

Kristofersen and built in 1958 by A.S. Westermoen of Mandal,
Norway. John Bontrager bought WHISPER in 1992 and raced
BRIDGET BONTRAGER

her until 1998, at which point restoration was required. He

replaced her maststep, keelbolts, and most of her frames,
then redesigned her cockpit with new seats and lockers. John
relaunched WHISPER last year in Muskegon, Michigan.

Paul Cooper of Keene, New Hampshire, writes that

this 1960, 16' Thompson Sea Coaster was tired when
he bought her. He revived her by replacing her
keel and splashrails, refastening her planking below
the waterline, sistering or replacing 18 frames, and
giving her a new finish. Paul and his family now
PAUL COOPER

cruise in SUZY G on the Connecticut River and

Maines southern coast.

Hints for taking good photos of your boat

1. Set your camera for high-resolution images. We prefer jpg
format, at 300 dpi minimum.
2. Stow fenders and extraneous gear out of the cameras view.
Ensure the deck is clean and uncluttered.
3. Take your photographs in low-angle sunlight for best results.
Early morning or late afternoon usually work well.
4. Keep the horizon level and the background simple and scenic
so your boat stands out from its surroundings.
5. Take some pictures of the boat underway and some at rest. Often
a vertical format works well for sailboats. Shoot a lot of images,
then send us your five favorites.
We enjoy learning of your workit affirms the vitality of the wooden
boat community. We receive so many submissions that there is not
room in the magazine for all of them to be published. Launchings
not printed in the magazine can be seen at www.woodenboat.com/
boat-launchings.

May/June 2016 101

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 REVIEW
PRODUCTS BOOKS VIDEOS STUFF

DRAGON HARALD FAIRHAIR

Reviewed by
Matthew P. Murphy

DRAGON HARALD FAIRHAIR , by

Arne Terje Saether. Arne Terje
Saether, Straumsveien 85, N-9105
Kvalya, Norway; terje@kasavi.no.
305 pp., illus. $65. ISBN 978-82-
997328-1-9. Available from the Wooden
Boat Store, 800-273-7447;www.wooden
boatstore.com.

D
RAGON HARALD FAIRHAIR ,
by Arne Terje Saether, details
the construction and sea tri-
als of the largest Viking ship in the
world, which was launched in 2012.
Its an artful account, told through
a stunning and comprehensive
album of photographs accompa-
nied by short, focused bits of text.
Reading it, in fact, is like enjoying a
slide showbut without the relent-
less and unforgiving pace of a live
presentation. With this book, were
able to linger on photographs and
study details of a most fascinating
boat as it comes together, piece by
piece, in a formerly vacant indus-
trial building in the southwestern
Norwegian city of Haugesund.
The book opens with a chapter
called The First Meeting, with
these words: Our introduction to
this incredible project is a telephone
call in 2008. The caller represents
someone who wants a Viking ship.
Not just any Viking ship, but the big-
gest Viking ship in the world. Was it
a joke? A hoax? A scam? After a first
meeting, it seemed clearly none of
those things. Sigurd Aase, the pro-
spective owner, was quite serious,
and eager to get started. He gave
the builders only two mandates:
size and seaworthiness. The ship
was to be the largest in existence,
and it was to be safe at sea. The lat-
ter was the more challenging order,
because no ships the size of this one
existed, and so the design required
copious research into all available
information. This would be dis-
tilled into detailed construction
drawings for an entirely new vessel,
but the builders were free to depart
from these drawings as they saw fit.
From that first meeting, the book
moves to pithy discussions of design,
test boats, drawings, and materials,
before embarking upon a color-
ful and informative account of the
construction of a 25-room ship. A
room is the space between frames,
varying from 30 to 34 Norwegian
incheswhich measure slightly
longer than English inches. The
new ship was to be 35 meters (115',
more or less) overall, and 7.5 meters
(about 25' ) on the beam. When not
sailing, she would be driven by 25

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pairs of oars, with two people per
oar, for a whopping total of 100
rowers. The archaeological record
suggests that ships of this size did
existthough no actual remains of
one have been unearthed.
Although this is a sophisticated
discussion of the building of the
ship, the text and photographs
are suffused with a certain play-
fulness, making it accessible to
the untrained. At one point, were
treated to photographs of two build-
ers draped in shavingsone mak-
ing a long moustache of the fine
spruce curls, the other a full head of
hair. Sorry, in-house humor, impos-
sible to translate, reads the caption.
On the opposite page, we see a
photograph of the remainder of
the crew, deftly positioned in the
layout so as to look as if theyre
observing the proceedings with wide
smiles. This is skilled bookmaking,
so much of which depends upon
such careful photograph selection
and placement.
The books very first words are
self-deprecating: The frontispiece
shows the heads of the builders
(their bodies were obscured by the
boat-in-progress) aligned along the
sheerstrake, smiling restrained-
goofy smiles. We knew everything
when we started, reads the text,
the rest we learned along the way.
In fact, they learned quite a bit
along the way. The project leaders
came to the job with some definite
opinions: Theres an undercurrent
of criticism running throughout of
scholarly Viking ship reconstruc-
tions that have labored to be pure
copies of archaeological finds. The
archaeological finds, writes Saether,
are often missing much material
or the material that is found is
Review250-AdFinal.indd 103
deformed. Both scenarios require
conjecture in interpretation for
reconstructions. FAIRHAIR , he
writes, is not a reconstruction. She
is a construction: a new Viking ship
meant to optimize hull form and
rig, and not to copy a predecessor.
He acknowledges the FAIRHAIR
building crew being criticized
by scholars for their approach to
the projectfor disregarding the
archaeological record and favoring
optimal hull shape. This is to be
expected, he says, since we have
criticized their methods for many
years.
The they in that statement
refers largely to the scholars at the
Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde,
Denmark, who have brought rigor-
ous interpretation to bear on the
archaeology of Viking shipsgoing
so far as to build replicas using
nothing but the tools and materials
available in the Viking era. The dif-
ferences between the two groups are
friendly: FAIRHAIRs builders made
a study trip to the cargo ship OTTAR
in Roskilde to test the power of its
windlass to determine the forces
required to raise the new ships sail.
In addition, three of FAIRHAIRs
builders visited Roskilde to study
the vexing intricacies of Viking
ship rudders. They also measured
the rudders of the two most famous
excavated Viking craft in the world:
the Gokstad and Oseberg ships,
which lie in state in a churchlike
museum on Oslos Bygdy peninsula.
Freed from the Viking method of
splitting planks from logs, the build-
ers used portable sawmills to get out
beautiful quarter-sawn planks from
massive, perfect oaks harvested
in Germany. Power planes appear
often in the photographs. Toward
the end of the project, two 150-
hp engines are fitted transversely
and discreetly into the hull, and
connected to hydraulic transmis-
sionsa harbinger of the owners
ambitions. FAIRHAIR is not to be a
dockside attraction.
Despite the anachronisms, there
was plenty of scholarship in this con-
struction. The crew was led by Gun-
nar Eldjarn, himself a researcher
of Norwegian boats. He wrote the
definitive treatise on the countrys
fabled Nordlands boatsNordlands-
bten og Afjordsbten, with co-author
Jon Godalone of the legendary
keepers of Norways traditional-boat
knowledge, who also helped out
at the beginning and end of the
FAIRHAIR project. Another major
study in the FAIRHAIR project was
to test the feasibility of silk as a
Viking-era sail material, with the
ship driven by a 290-square-meter
sail of silk. It worked beautifully ini-
tially, but wore out in a few years and
was replaced by a smaller synthetic
one.
The text is in both Norwegian and
English, carefully blended together
so neither dominates. Saether is a
May/June 2016 103
3/23/16 1:23 PM
 WOODENBOAT REVIEW
skilled photographer as well as word-
smith, and his photographs convey a
technical mastery of the boatbuild-
ers artas they should, for in addi-
tion to creating this comprehensive
set of photographs, which lead from
the very first meeting all the way to
sea trials, he served as the projects
lead rigger.
The ship emerged from her build-
ing shed two years and one month
after the first plane stroke, and was
launched by a floating crane on June
5, 2012. She didnt leaksave for a
single jet of water captured in a pho-
tograph. And so she complied with
the Gulating Law, which dates to
before the year 900: If a man can
keep a ship that has soaked for five
days afloat in a seaway, then the ship
is seaworthy. She was subsequently
Kayaks of Alaska
Reviewed by John Summers
Kayaks of Alaska, by Harvey Golden.
White House Grocery Press, 2000
S.E. 47th Ave., Portland, OR 97215.
Softcover, plans, photographs, draw-
ings, footnotes, appendices, bibliog-
raphy, index. 560 pp., $59. ISBN
9780978722128. Available from subsistence hunting. Drawing on
the Wooden Boat Store, 8002737447;
www.woodenboatstore.com.
Both Harvey Goldens new book,
Kayaks of Alaska, and his earlier
Kayaks of Greenland: The History and
Development of the Greenlandic Hunt-
ing Kayak, 16002000 (2006), are
steeped in tradition. The paddled
watercraft he researches and writes
about are, as George Dyson says
in the introduction to Kayaks of
Alaska, a record of a way of life,
and a system of belief and they
are part of a continuum reaching
back thousands of years. As the
author notes, Kayakers have been
navigating the waters of Alaska for
several millennia. When the great
pyramids of Giza were being built,
hunters in the Bering Straits were
feeding their families with sea
104 WoodenBoat 250
Review250-AdFinal.indd 104
ballasted with 25 tons of stone that
also appear in one of the books
images. Sea trials, which included a
crew of elite Norwegian square-rig
sailors, included much experimen-
tation with trim, which is discussed
at length here.
An original 25-room ship may
not have been built this way, writes
Saether, but FAIRHAIR reveals a lot
about the forces at work on such
a ship, and about the sailing char-
acteristics and sail handling. This
has been amply tested over the
past several summers, with trips
along the Norwegian coast and
to Ireland. This summer comes
the big test: DRAGON HARALD
FAIRHAIR will depart Haugesund
for North America in May. Shell
make stops in Iceland, Greenland,
mammals hunted from kayaks. In
stark contrast to these preceding
millennia, a mere two centuries
elapsed from the kayak cultures
first contact with Europeans to
the end of the kayaks use for
preserved kayaks in museum col-
lections, journals, diaries, notes,
interviews, and historic photos,
Golden documents the shapes,
forms, and structures of kayaks
and the northern cultures that built
and used them.
Goldens work is also part of a
more modern tradition of research-
ers who seek out and document
traditional watercraft both in the
field and in museum collections.
Like Edwin Tappan Adney, Howard
Chapelle, John Gardner, and John
Heath, among others, his plans,
drawings, photographs, and writing
are a vital link between museum col-
lections and their countless thou-
sands of preserved artifacts and the
peoples, traditions and practices
that made them. As with Chapelle,
who took over Adneys lifes work of
and Newfoundland before heading
into the St. Lawrence Seaway for
visits to Toronto, Ohio, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and Minnesota before
transiting the New York Canal sys-
tem. Shell end the season at Mystic
Seaport, and overwinter there on
display.
This ship is the product of one
way a large Viking ship could have
been built, Saether writes. It was
a once in a lifetime project. And
her visit to North America will be a
once-in-a-lifetime event. Id strongly
encourage anyone planning a visit
to get their hands on a copy of this
book first. The encounter will be all
the richer for having read it.
Matthew P. Murphy is editor of
WoodenBoat.
notes, sketches, and research after
his death, merged it with his own
studies, and published both as The
Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North
America (see sidebar), Golden has
incorporated John Heaths unpub-
lished fieldwork and research into
Kayaks of Alaska.
This is a monumental work, so
packed with details and informa-
tion that even the author admits
that it is a daunting prospect for
the casual reader. The breadth,
range, and detail of Goldens
scholarship are simply overwhelm-
ing. However, that very density of
3/23/16 1:23 PM

content also makes for an almost-
inexhaustible reference that can
be dipped into and enjoyed again
and again over many years. The
first chapter introduces the Alaskan
kayak and the three main groups of
its builders and users: the Aleutian
Islanders, known as the Unangan;
and two distinct cultural groups of
Alaskan Eskimos, the Yupik and
the Iupiaq. In this chapter Golden
also discusses the decline in kayak
use that began after the arrival of
traders in the mid-18th century,
caused largely by the integration of
northerners into trading-company
economies that tied them to items
of European manufacture and
diminished their reliance on subsis
tence hunting carried out in kayaks.
There are different orthographic
and transliteration conventions for
what these peoples and their boats
are called. Kayak, which Golden
uses throughout the book, is an
English spelling of an indigenous
spoken word from several different
dialects, which is also now some
times rendered as qajaq.
The next chapter classifies Alas
kan kayaks into a typology based on
characteristics of form and construc
tion that also takes account of the
background of the builders and
users. This is followed by a chapter
called Presentation & Terminology
describing the conventions used in
documenting and illustrating the
kayaks and provides a glossary of
terms. As with every other aspect
of this book, Goldens drawings
are thorough and meticulous and
Review250-AdFinal.indd 105
demonstrate the depth of his
research. In addition to the conven
tional views of naval architecture
plan, profile, body plan, and
sectionGolden has added his own
unique touch in the form of per
spective sketches of the interiors
and exteriors of selected kayaks.
Using a lightbox, he has traced
photographs of these details in
pen and ink, capturing repairs,
scarfs, and the irregularities result
ing from construction with drift
wood and other found materials.
Freed of the visual clutter of photo
graphs, the drawings offer addi
tional insight into the structures of
the kayaks. Golden is scrupulously
honest about identifying where
his drawings show conjectural or
reconstructed elements, or where
he has refaired distorted lines. In
some cases, he also presents the
Woodenboat Review
as-found lines for comparison. This
truth in representation is impor
tant for the scholarly integrity of his
work, and will forestall some of the
criticisms that have in the past been
leveled at Chapelle, among others,
for tidying up irregularities in
recorded lines.
The following chapters cover six
regional varieties of kayaks, one type
per chapter. Each chapter begins
with a history and a discussion of the
construction and use of that particu
lar type, together with notes about
its shape and unique features. This is
followed by plates of scale drawings
and a very detailed discussion of that
kayak, together with more sketches,
photographs, and illustrations. For
each kayak design featured in the
book, he offers a detailed account of
its provenance, history of ownership,
and how it came to be in a museum
collection. A section of 24 color plates
offers measured drawings of orna
mental stitching and fabric tufts,
decoration on hulls and structural
members, and painted patterns on
paddles.
Chapter 10 addresses kayak con
struction, Chapter 11 covers kayak
equipment, and Chapter 12 deals
with paddles. Readers used to
thinking of kayaks as being pro
pelled only with double blades may
be surprised by the widespread use
of single-bladed paddles by Alaskan
kayakers. The five appendices that
follow this chapter provide infor
mation on the remains of kayaks
from burial caves, an undecked
May/June 2016 105
3/23/16 1:23 PM
 WOODENBOAT REVIEW

canoe-form kayak, two kayaks from
the Russian Far East, a comparison
of the ratios and proportions of
various examples, and finally the
authors suggestions for lifting and
lofting kayak lines. The book con-
cludes with a substantial bibliogra-
phy and an index.
It is impossible to read this book
and not be in awe of the seamanship
and boat-handling skills of the Alas-
kan kayakers that Golden portrays.
Beginning as young boys, hunters
learned to use kayaks in sheltered
waters in lakes or alongshore. Matur-
ing early in the harsh northern envi-
ronment, they were soon expected
to master the use of the tools of
their trade, for both their own per-
sonal safety and the survival of their
families depending on their prow-
ess. From their slim, strong, flexible
kayaks they routinely ventured miles
from shore to hunt walrus, sea otter,
and even, in the case of the Unangan
of the Aleutian Islands, whales.
John Summers is a boatbuilder, small craft
historian, watercraft blogger, and museum
curator who lives in Burlington, Ontario.

Further Reading: A Library of Canoe and Kayak Research

A
rich and interesting literature
has grown up around indig-
enous watercraft. True schol-
arship of any kind, and particularly
watercraft scholarship, can be a
stern calling. Years of patient, care-
ful study in libraries, archives, and
museums must be combined with
meticulous fieldwork, often under
difficult conditions, and anthropo-
logical knowledge of other cultures,
customs, and languages. The reward
for all of this hard work may some-
times be fame, but very seldom
fortune.
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of
North America, by Edwin Tappan
Adney and Howard I. Chapelle
(Smithsonian Institution, 1964)
The challenges and rewards
of watercraft history are nowhere
better illustrated than in the career
of Edwin Tappan Adney (1868
1950). After three years of art school,
he developed an interest in outdoor
life and native culture and in 1889
worked alongside a Malecite Indian
in New Brunswick, Canada, as each
built a bark canoe. Over the next
several decades, he ranged far and
wide across North America working
as a writer for Harpers and Colliers

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Review250-AdFinal.indd 106 3/23/16 10:23 AM


and also serving as a Canadian
Army engineer.
All the while, he was drawing
and recording aboriginal water-
craft, interviewing their builders
and constructing a series of exact
scale models based on his field
notes and photographs. In the later
years of his life he began turning
over a portion of his notes and mod-
els to The Mariners Museum in
Newport News, Virginia. Following
his death in 1950, his son donated
the remainder of his papers, and
Frederick Hill, the director of the
museum, sought naval architect and
historian Howard Chapelles help in
organizing and publishing Adneys
work. The resulting publication, The
Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North
America, is a fundamental text for
anyone interested in watercraft his-
tory and a model for other scholars
in the field.
Harvey Golden frequently acknowl-
edges his debt to Adney and Chapelles
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work, and his studies of kayaks often
pick up where their work left off.
Watercraft historian John Heath,
whose research Golden published
in the same way as Chapelle did
Adneys, also features in The Bark
Canoes and Skin Boats of North Amer-
ica, having contributed an appendix
on kayak rolling techniques.
In 1923 naval architect Norman
L. Skene redrew for amateur con-
struction a southwest Greenland
kayak he had documented in 1921
and whose lines Chapelle later
included in The Bark Canoes and Skin
Boats of North America. These plans
and specifications were published
in the June 1923 issue of The Rud-
der. Skene had been introduced to
kayaking by designer Starling Bur-
gess. He frequently paddled this and
other kayaks around Marblehead
Harbor, but in June 1932 he failed
to return from such a trip, mark-
ing a great loss for American naval
architecture. Through his classic
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WOODENBOAT REVIEW
work Skenes Elements of Yacht Design
and this kayak, among other boats,
his work has lived on. In redesign-
ing the kayak for amateur construc-
tion he had substituted dimensional
lumber and canvas for the originals
driftwood and animal skin.
Wood and Canvas Kayak Building, by
George Putz. (International Marine
Publishing, 1990)
In 1990, George Putz, a self-
described author, curmudgeon,
and sometimes walrus, revived
Skenes design with the help of kay-
aker and naval architect Spencer
Lincoln in his book Wood and Canvas
Kayak Building. Putz further updated
Skenes design for modern materials
and included the option of scaling
the original 17' hull up or down.
With Putzs book and the invest-
ment of a little time and a modest
amount of materials, you can bring
to life and enjoy a boat in the spirit
of the original Greenland kayaks.
May/June 2016 107
3/23/16 10:23 AM
 WOODENBOAT REVIEW

FREE As the author notes, Many

people make a hobby of study-
E-Newsletter! ing and collecting boat plans.
For those so afflicted, and I cer-
tainly include myself among their
number, Putzs book is worth your
1. Go to time even if you never even dream
of building yourself a kayak. His
woodenboat.com detailed, step-by-step instruc-
tions, pragmatic advice, and self-
deprecating humor make for an
enjoyable read. A self-portrait of
him holding a pattern piece is
captioned, ...here modeled by a
vagrant working off a debt, and
a few pages later a friend helping
with canvasing is described as a
visiting tractor dealer. A section
titled General Watercraft His-
tory begins with, Neither in the
first chapter or here will I indulge
a thesis about skin boats being
2. Fill and click Mans First Watercraft or any simi-
lar paleo-maritime nonsense
even some respectable maritime
Stay in touch historians have published illustra-
with ALL we do! tions of a cave man on a log with
a caption reading something like
Mans First Boat. The authors
and editors of such books have
never tried a log.

Qajaq: A Journal Dedicated to the

Study of Northern Native Water-
craft, published by Qajaq USA .
www.qajaqusa.org
Qajaq USA is a nonprofit orga-
nization that supports the Green-
land Kayaking Association and
their efforts to preserve, study,
and promote the traditions and
techniques of Greenland kayak-
ing while seeking to further the
Model Shown
Beta 38 appreciation and development of
Greenland-style kayaking in the
SMOOTHERQUIETER U.S. Harvey Golden is an emeri-
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Marine engines using Kubota Diesels
about equipment, techniques,
from 13.5 to 100 HP. kayak building, events, and dis-
Including Atomic 4 replacements and cussion forums. Each year they
saildrive engines. publish an issue of Qajaq: A Jour-
Quiet diesels with clean emissions that nal Dedicated to the Study of North-
meet current EPA requirements, without ern Watercraft. Back issues can be
the need for computer controlled common
purchased online, but only mem-
rail complexity.
bers receive the current year. The
journal is well-researched and
(877) 227-2473 scholarly in tone. Issue No. 1, for
Phone (252) 249-2473 example, which was published in
www.betamarinenc.com 2003, includes an article about
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108 WoodenBoat 250

Review250-AdFinal.indd 108 3/23/16 10:23 AM


the walrus-pull. Once a necessary
skill for hunters, it has become
a competitive event mimicking
what could happen after a wal-
rus had been harpooned. Five
paddlers on shore pull the kayak
sideways in the water, simulating
the wounded animal, while the
paddler fights to keep the boat
upright. Other articles include
a piece about how to spot fake
kayak models and kayak-related
antiques, two articles by Golden
about West Greenland kayaks,
and an article by noted Canadian
kayak researcher Eugene Arima
about two ivory skin-boat models
in a private collection.
Birchbark Canoes of the Fur Trade,
Vols. I and II, by Timothy J. Kent
(Silver Fox Enterprises, 1997)
Timothy Kent is to fur trade
canoes what Golden is to Green-
land and Alaskan kayaks. The two
volumes of his Birchbark Canoes of
the Fur Trade are the product of
countless hours and miles spent
photographing and documenting
birchbark canoes in North Ameri-
can museum collections and con-
ducting interviews and archival
research. In the acknowledgments,
Kent recognizes Edwin Tappan
Adneys pioneering research, call-
ing him the scholar upon whose
shoulders all canoe historians
stand. According to Kent, The
present study is an extension of
his work, based on a number of
surviving canoes and a wide array
of references which were either
unavailable or difficult to access in
Adneys era.
The first volume contains sub-
stantial chapters on the manu-
facture, hull design, decoration,
equipment and provisions, cargoes
and loading, propulsion, portag-
ing, use as shelters, and longevity,
storage, and repairs. The second
volume presents a detailed study of
eight surviving 19th-century birch-
bark voyaging canoes, four full-size
and four models. As with Goldens
book, Kent provides photographs,
drawings, sketches, and detailed
notes about the canoes scantlings
and construction.
JS
Review250-AdFinal.indd 109
WOODENBOAT REVIEW
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 DESIGNS: REVIEW
REMBRANDT
Utility meets luxury
Design by Rockport Marine Yacht Design
Commentary by Robert W. Stephens
A
custom center-console power-
boat is a rare bird indeed.
The selection of stock and
semi-stock boats matching this
description is huge and varied, so
the vast majority of boat buyers are
easily able to find a boat to suit their
purposes without going to the trou-
ble and considerable expense of
commissioning a custom design and
going through with a bespoke build.
In addition, most users of center-
consoles are focused heavily on the
utility of the boatwill it fish well;
can it easily carry the family on an
island excursion; can it serve as a
floating pickup truck to support an
offshore camp? Most custom boats
are commissioned because the cli-
ent falls in love with the beauty of
the boat and the promise of gor-
geous craftsmanshipand, frankly,
for most buyers of center-consoles,
AboveREMBRANDT is a most uncommon rendition of a very common type: The ubiquitous center-console boat.
110 WoodenBoat 250
Designs250-Rembrandt-AdFinal.indd 110
these subjective delights are way
down the list of whats important to
them. A good solid boat with great
running lines and a useful cockpit
trumps the desire for glossy varnish
and elegant tumblehome. Among
the offerings from the dozens of
high-volume builders, there are
many, many high-quality boats that
look good and deliver solid service-
ability, so why go to the trouble of a
custom design and build?
If you are someone whos used to
getting the very best and is accus-
tomed to the enjoyment of a custom
project, you know why. Rockport
Marine has been fortunate to work
with a number of people who rec-
ognize top quality and see the value
in it, and REMBRANDTs owner is
such a client. Among his stable of
yachts REMBRANDT is small pota-
toes, but theres not a detail on her
LOA
Particulars
26'
LWL 24'
Beam 8' 11"
Draft (hull) 1' 5"
Displacement 6,350 lbs
Power 200 hp
that wouldnt hold up on one of his
larger yachts. He built a relationship
with the building crew and design
staff at Rockport during the build of
a custom 50' sailboat, and when he
needed a small utility boat, Rockport
was the obvious choice.
The design staff at Rockport
Marine has been involved primar-
ily in supporting its crew of highly
experienced craftspeople in new
builds and restorations of classic
yachts by other designers, rather
than in working from a blank slate.
REMBRANDTs build was a great
opportunity to apply their deep
knowledge of hands-on skill to a
new design. Their expertise in mod-
ern laminated-wood construction
methods and their understanding
of just what the crew would need
from them to build this boat shows
in the concise drawing list and the
3/22/16 3:20 PM
 wealth of detail thats found on the
drawings.
REMBRANDT is the result of a col-
laboration between the two design-
ers at Rockport during her design
and buildBrendan Riordan and
Sam Chamberlin. Before moving on
to another career, Brendan com-
pleted the 3D hull modeling and the
bulk of the designhe had been
Rockports primary contact on design
matters with the client during the
build of the sailboat, so was a natu-
ral choice to roll into this project.
After Riordans departure, Cham-
berlin stepped in to shepherd the
boat through the build and round
out any remaining details. The dove-
tailing of the two designers and the
seamless integration with the build
crew under job boss Sam Temple
shows in the clean and deceptively
simple detail of the finished boat:
They make it look easy.
Now, to the boat. As Riordan
says, Theres nothing magic about
designing a good planing power-
boat. Well, yes; the basic science
is not very complicated, and since
The boat is driven by a 200-hp diesel inboard motor coupled to a Volvo stern-drive.
Designs250-Rembrandt-AdFinal.indd 111
pioneers such as Lindsay Lord and
Ray Hunt showed us the way about
six or seven decades ago, theres
really no excuse for a boat that per-
forms really badly. But thats not
to say theres no nuance to it. The
nuances REMBRANDT shows are all
on the positive side of the ledger.
The design brief called for a
moderate top speed, so Riordan
specified a 200-hp diesel inboard
for fuel efficiency and reliability
and the safety of a non-explosive
fuel. The small engine, coupled with
a Volvo Duoprop stern-drive, delivers
a top speed of 28 knots and a solid
cruise of 20 knots, which is pretty
remarkable given the substantial
displacement of over 6,000 lbs. The
stern-drive features twin propellers,
rotating in opposite directions on
the same shaft for high efficiency
and elimination of prop-walk; the
low drag of this system (compared
to a conventional shaft, strut, and
propeller) is largely responsible for
the high efficiency of the boat, motor,
and drive package. Other benefits
are the ability to use the tilt-trim
feature of the drive to adjust run-
ning trim, and the shoal-water
capability and easy trailerability of
tilting up the drive.
Not that trailering is a snap: A
sizable rig will be needed to move
the hefty boat over the road. A
deep-V boat relies on steep dead-
rise and a deep hull centerline for a
solid, smooth ride in chop; this
means lots of boat in the water and
thus lots of weight to press the boat
down in the water. A light boat of
deep-V shape is either an oxymo-
ron or a bad-running boat. Taking
weight out of a deep-V boat will let
her float so high that her chines are
no longer immersed, and shell
become tippy at rest and squirrely
at speed. These vices are notable in
their complete absence aboard
REMBRANDT; Chamberlin and
Temple report that she has a
sense of solidity and predictability
thats totally reassuring. You can
spin the helm hard-over at full
throttle without any concern, says
Temple proudly. Shes just a good-
running boat. He credits the
BILLY BLACK
May/June 2016 111
3/22/16 3:20 PM
 DESIGNS

Modern wood-
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Rockport Marine,
where REMBRANDT
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REMBRANDT.

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112 WoodenBoat 250

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 DESIGNS

The large, open cockpit includes bench

seating forward and aft, and the elevated
helm seat affords good all-around
visibilityand room for a passenger.

running fast; maybe the extra lift

weight distribution resulting from
the forward placement of the
engine as being responsible for the
pinpoint handling.
The hull shows the hallmarks of
a classic deep-V shape, familiar for
half a century since Ray Hunt intro-
duced us to MOPPIE, but a few differ-
ences catch the eye. Most striking is
the way Riordan introduced rocker
to the underwater profile of the hull
and the planing surfaces: Instead of
the keel and buttock lines running
straight aft from the midship sec-
tion, theres a noticeable curvature
of several inches over that distance.
You can see it also in the lines plan:
The waterlines at the stern are nar-
rower than amidships, indicating a
rising surface in the bottom panel.
We would expect this to cause the
boat to trim up in the bow when
allows the helmsman more flexibil-
ity in running angle by using the
tilt-trim feature of the stern-drive
to push the bow downif the bow
runs too low, theres really no way
to lift it.
The layout is standard center-
console, with details carried out to
the highest level of craftsmanship.
Another plus of having the engine
under the console is excellent access
for service. The console can be heav-
ily soundproofed and the jackshaft
between engine and stern-drive
allows the engine to be mounted
on very soft bushings, as the thrust
is taken by the stern-drive, limiting
structure-borne noise and assuring

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May/June 2016 113

Designs250-Rembrandt-AdFinal.indd 113 3/22/16 3:20 PM

 DESIGNS

The lines plan shows

a symphony of
shapes, including a
distinctive tumble-
home in the aft top-
sides and a
flaring bow. The
classic deep-V
bottom shape has a
few noticeable
differences, including
a subtly curving keel
from amidships aft.

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114 WoodenBoat 250

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 DESIGNS

REMBRANDTs owner has a 50' sailboat

also built at Rockport Marine, and his
center-console boat is full of big-boat
details such as custom hardware and
carefully planned deck drainage.

a quiet ride. Bench seats fore and aft

supply plenty of lounge space for a
large cocktail cruise, while a raised
bench assures the helmsman and
companion are comfortable and in
control.
And while there may be no magic

about designing a decent hull, its
clear that the Rockport team knows
how to design and build a beautiful
boat. The sheer is striking from all
anglesa compelling powder-horn
reverse is evident from several van-
tage points, but its always attractive.
The tumblehome is subtle but a wel-
come change from hulls designed to
pop easily out of molds. The boat is
full of big-boat details: Custom deck
drains shed rain without streaking
the topsides, custom chocks show
dramatic swoops, joinerwork and
varnish are exquisite. For a client
who knows a masterpiece when he
sees it, REMBRANDT has been a
worthy custom project.
BILLY BLACK
Bob Stephens is a principal at Stephens
Waring Yacht Design in Belfast, Maine.
Contact the designers at: Rockport Marine
Design, 1 Main St., P.O. Box 203, Rockport,
ME 04856; 2072369651; office@rockport
marine.com; http://rockportmarine.com.

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May/June 2016 115

Designs250-Rembrandt-AdFinal.indd 115 3/22/16 3:20 PM

 DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK

MANTA
A sit-on-top kayak
by Laurie McGowan

Dea r Desi gner, isnt necessar y, but there

I live in Canberra, Aus- just go, and wide and stable. Fast
My name is Cameron Major and room for som e gear and a rod or two.
drive from the coast. shou ld be
tal, a two- and- a-ha lf-ho ur istia n Smi th describes Man ny Palo-
tral ias capi Sout h Wales, In WB No. 247, Chr
We have a sma ll place at Kiol oa Bea ch in New whic are composed of ver-
h
and son arent keen sh- mos Plan k Form Surf boards,
I love to go shin g. My wife This gave me an interest ing idea: Cou ld my
and a shin g boat. tica l staves.
t just ify the cost of buy ing But I love the lines of the Boot leg-
ermen, so I can but cannot kayak be built this way?
Therefore, I have been look ing for an alte rnat ive plan king, so can there be
ger kayak and the beauty of strip
whe re. on the deck ?
nd it any some strip plan king
ak I could builda wooden that I am restorin g, and a
My search has been for a kay real ly nice I have an orig inal Cout a boat
kayak, not a plastic one. Why
can t I have a t a couple of hollow surf boards
gh, that I wou ld fold ing kayak. I have also buil
wooden shin g kay ak? The thin g is, thou g and met alworkin g at a high school,
Ill laun ch it and teach woodworkin
like the kayak to be of the sit-o n-to p vari ety, as tools. Therefore, construction
so I am pretty capable with
ugh surf and don t wan t it to ll with water. There is a prob lem for me.
thro shou ldnt be a
ut a third of a mile) oshore, d about 185cm (6).
sma ll island about 500m (abo sh arou nd I weig h 100 kg (220 lbs) and stan
and I wou ld like to be able to get out ther e and
t wait to see if this conc ept ts your criteria. I will
boat as a spea r shin g I can
the head land s. I coul d also use the righ t now and clea r some space!
go out to the shed Ca meron Major
plat form if it was sit-o n-to p.
to be laun ched from the sand
It shou ld be sturdy enou gh
to get out of storage and
(a plywood hull, perh aps?), easy

Dear Cameron, following comparison of three hull shapes. For the

Thanks very much for your letter. Your request is a fun
one, and I can easily imagine you arriving at the beach
with this boat, hopping on, and heading out. While
sketching the boat, a few requirements came to mind:
light weight
reasonable length
easy construction
good performance upwind, and ability to surf on
waves on the way home
deck clean enough to flop on to while recovering
from a spill, and
a strap-on space for gear that also is the strap-down
for the seat
Im calling this boat MANTA for the incredible family
of rays that populate the oceans of the world, and are
really well represented in the waters of Australia.
Though Ive only seen skates while diving in our north-
ern waters, Ive always admired the graceful way they
move. Rays live in the oceans and up brackish rivers;
they can park on the ocean bottom (often in the shal-
lows off beaches); and they sometimes fly completely
clear of the water like a beach kayak launched through
waves.
Hull Shapes: Flat, V, or Box Keel?
My initial reaction was to think of a surfboard with a
seat on it, but then I thought about improving the
upwind and up-wave performance, which led to the
three hulls, Ill keep everything the same above the
sheerline but alter the bottoms for the comparisons. To
accommodate a big person like you, the working dis-
placement is set at 245 lbs (111 k) and the length at 11'
(3.66m). All would require fewer than three sheets of
4mm plywood to complete.
Flat Bottom
Boat No. 1 is a simple flat-bottomed shape, with good
rocker and an upturned bow to clear small waves. This
would behave exactly as one would imagine, with lots of
lift forward, and be great for surfing. But it would be
abrupt when paddling against those same waves. The
flat scow bottom means part of your energy would be
used to push through a pressure wave that would build
up in front of the boat. Stability would be excellent, but
with a stiff feelthat is, it would not roll with you much
on each stroke, meaning a less natural motion and
maybe banged fingers on the sides of the hull if you
dont reach out far enough. This would be the lightest
and easiest boat of the three to build.
V Bottom
Boat No. 2 is a simple, shallow V-bottomed shape. Like
No. 1, it has a lot of initial stability, but with a more
refi ned waterline forward that will divert the high-
pressure bow wave to the sides as the boat moves
forward. For some reason, my Computational Fluid

116 WoodenBoat 250

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 The designer considered three different hull shapes when developing the concept for a home-buildable sit-on-top fishing
kayak. He chose No. 2a V-bottomed hullfor its relative ease of construction and good performance. The name of the
new boat is MANTA .

Dynamics (CFD) software gives a conflicting prediction most often when a deep and fine bow digs in while the
that at around 3.5 knots this hull would start to have aft end of the boat rises and pivots around the bow.
more resistance than the flat-bottomed hull but would Having this happen at the wrong time can result in a
require less power to go the same speed. Experience nasty wipeout.
and common sense say this is a better shape, so Ill go The panels of this type of construction are very long,
with requiring less power! straight, and thin, and you can lay them out really well
The V will allow for a little more flexibility in the on plywood. However, the construction is more compli-
panel layout, but will require one more joint, the center cated than the first two and the number of longitudinal
one, to complete the bottom. joints, from chine to chine, jumps to six, meaning extra
building time and greater weight of materials.
Box Keel So, Im going with hull No. 2 as the compromise. It
This is a shape that designer Phil Bolger popularized, has a good combination of performance and moderate
and I really like it a lot. It provides the benefits of a construction cost.
much more complicated round-bottomed hull, while
being much easier to build. If you look at the curves of Topsides and Decks
areas, you can see that this one (Boat No. 3) has the I originally included some flare in the sides in the for-
longest waterline and its volume is spread out better ward sections, but flare often requires curved pieces cut
than the other two shapes. This hull will slice through from plywood, and this is wasteful of materials, so I
the water much better. The long keel provides a natural altered it. The sides are now perfectly vertical all the way
skeg as well, so directional stability will be much around the boat, but because theyre not very high the
improved over Nos. 1 and 2. There is enough rocker, or boat doesnt look boxy. The ideal side construction
longitudinal curve, in the underside of the forefoot to would be three layers of 12'  8"  116" (3,658  203 
keep that area from taking over, or bow steering 3mm) softwood (not plywood) bent around simple
especially while surfing down a wave. This happens L-shaped gluing guides screwed to a bench or a sheet of

May/June 2016 117

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 DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK

MANTA is a simple and versatile boatquick to

build, and quick to get underway.

plywood. If you cant easily get that material,

then two layers of 4mm okoume cut cross-
grained (the outer layers having their grain
running vertically) will do it. This grain orien-
tation means the plywood will bend better in
the tightly curved ends. Youll need to stagger
the joints, but once its all glued up youll have
two 8mm-thick sides to be joined together
against small butt-blocks on the centerline at
bow and stern. The final sheer and chine lines
in the sides can be cut with a jigsaw once the
gluing is complete. The chine log and sheer
champ will be laminated from three layers of
114"  14" (32  6mm) spruce, using the top-
sides as the gluing jig. When installed, their
edges should protrude above and below the
sides by 38" (10mm). When the deck and bot-
tom panels are eventually glued to the chine
logs and sheer clamps, they too will be set
back from the edges by 38". This setback will
allow for a good radius of the corners and
make covering the hull with 6-oz fiberglass cloth
tape that much easier.
Assembly will start right-side-up, with the
ring frames and bulkheads tabbed into
their correct locations between the sides with
thickened-epoxy fillets. The boat will then be
flipped over, the chines planed to the correct
bevel, and the bottom panels glued to them.
Once the glue has dried, the chines can be
radiused with a block plane and sandpaper
(the plywood sides and bottom will taper to
feather edges) and taped. The centerline joint
will be stitched together with zip ties or cop-
per wire, then taped over with 6-oz fiberglass
cloth and epoxy.
The boat is then flipped right-side up, and
the remaining interior components tabbed in
placeincluding the three deck stringers let
into the frames. The two aft stringers are the
backing for the rails, and the deck is glued to
these and the beveled sheer clamps. The
edges are then radiused and taped in the
same manner as the chines. All wood gets
three coats of epoxy for protection.
I wont try to keep you completely dry, as
the weight and complexity would go up a lot in

The speed (right) and resistance curves show

conflicting predictions that the chosen hull
M2would develop more resistance around 3.5
knots, but require less power to go that speed. The
designer, however, relying on common sense and
experience, chose this hull.

118 WoodenBoat 250

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MANTAs simple shape is built by first
forming the sides, and then installing the
interior framework. The bottom, deck,
and details follow.
attempting to do that. Although you live in a warm
place, it still would be good to divert small waves when
youre heading out, so Ive designed a combination foot-
rest/coaming of sorts. The peaked foredeck forward of
this is small, but like a motorcycle cowling it will, I hope,
keep most of the spray off you and provide buoyancy in
waves.
Since youre an experienced woodworker and arent
afraid of a little strip-planking or laminating, Ive made
the curved footrest/coaming a key design feature of the
boat. It is laminated of three layers of 4mm okoume
plywood, cross-cut for ease of bending, and will have to
be laid up over a simple jig. The coaming is tabbed
to the aft deck, then the foredeck is tabbed to both
the coaming, sheer clamp, and foredeck stringer. The
coaming will need to be fiberglass-sheathed as it has a
lot of exposed end-grain, and its part footrest and part
handhold so needs to be strong. It will get hit by pretty
much everythinga lotbut I hope not by your hands
while paddling, so it might need paring-down near its
edges to ensure this never happens.
Only the major wear points will need fiberglass tape,
and everywhere else will be coated in epoxy, then
painted (if desired). A 6" (150mm) plastic screw-in
hatch is installed in the deck aft of the seat, the rails
and footrests are then installed, and the semi-rigid,
store-bought seat strapped in place.
DesignsSketch250-Final.indd 119
DESIGNS: SKETCHBOOK
Particulars
LOA 11' (335 cm)
Beam 2' 4" (71 cm)
Weight 32 lbs. (14.5 kg)
Displacement
at LWL shown 245 lbs (111 kg)
Goin Fishing!
I estimate MANTA to finish out at around 32 lbs, or 14.5
kg, so I can see you carrying it to the beach in one trip.
Youll have the boat in one arm, maybe with a strap
around your waist that goes under the side of the boat
and up to your hand. Youll be wearing your life vest and
will have a waterproof gear pack on your back, with the
fishing rod and paddle in your other hand.
When you reach the waters edge, youll put your
flip-flops in the pack, strap it and the rod between the
rails behind you, hop aboard, say your see you laters,
and head out. Im getting excited just imagining that
great feeling of heading off on an adventure. Youll be
held in place by foot straps, plus the diagonal seat
straps and backrest. If your son is young enough,
maybe he can stand behind you with a foot under each
rail while you go yahooing in the waves. Faster, dad,
faster! Those kinds of fun activities make the best
memories!
Laurie McGowan is a boat designer in Nova Scotia with a diverse
on- and below-water work history; he specializes in energy-efficient
commercial and pleasure boats. More of his work may be found
atwww.mcgowanmarinedesign.com.
Do you have a boat concept youd like to see Laurie McGowan develop on
these pages? If so, send it to Sketchbook, WoodenBoat Publications, P.O.
Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616, or email it to sketchbook@woodenboat.com.
Your letter should be no longer than 500 words.
May/June 2016 119
3/23/16 1:20 PM
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PHOTO: BILLY BLACK

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120 WoodenBoat 250

WB250Vintage.indd 120 3/21/16 3:20 PM

 BOATBROKERS
Contessa is for sale.
Freshly painted, well-maintained
schooner built at the Hodgdon
Shipyard in ME. Honduras
mahogany over oak frame,
with teak decks. Ready
for offshore cruising,
many improvements.

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Contact Byron@DenisonYachtSales.com / 310-600-2851

CUSTOM BUILDING H DESIGN H RESTORATION H BROKERAGE

LUCAYO CLASSY LADY SAY WHEN DUCK SOUP

1993, BBY Cruising Cutter, 47' 1971, BBY Ketch, 36' 1996, BBY Buzzards Bay 25, 33' 2012, BBY Jet Drive Launch, 26'
Asking: $300,000 / Maine Asking: $66,000 / Massachusetts Asking: $159,000 / Connecticut Asking: $225,000 / Maine

RACE HORSE MASQUERADE ARAMINTA HALCYON

2010, BBY / W-Class, 37' 2010, S&S New York 32, 45' 1954, Herreshoff Araminta, 33' 1958, Ohlson 35 Yawl, 35'
Asking: $599,000 / Rhode Island Asking: EU 450,000 / Netherlands Asking: $75,000 / Connecticut Asking: $60,000 / Maine

ALLIANCE STARRLIGHT GRANDE DAME MAID OF COLL

2007, Gannon & Benjamin, 32' 1995, Arno & Frank Day, 28' 1950, Hinckley SouWester Sloop, 34' 1954, Hinckley Standard Yawl, 36'
Asking: $278,000 / Maine Asking: $40,000 / Maine Asking: $29,500 / Vermont Asking: $30,000 / Connecticut
2011, 69', BBY Sloop: $1,700,000 1982, 50' BBY Trawler: $175,000 1961, 39' S&S Sloop: $165,000 1948: Aage Nielsen Sloop: $12,000
1992, 55', BBY Sloop: $199,000 1999, 39' BBY Sloop: $395,000 1968, Bill Tripp One-Tonner: $83,000 1980: Goeller Tender w/trailer: $7,500

SERVICE NEW CONSTRUCTION DESIGN RESTORATION BROKERAGE

207-359-2236 johnd@brooklinboatyard.com 207-359-2236 swhite@brooklinboatyard.com 207-359-2193 brokerage@brooklinboatyard.com
P.O. Box 143, Center Harbor Brooklin, ME 04616 USA www.brooklinboatyard.com

May/June 2016 121

WB250Brokers.indd 121 3/22/16 2:47 PM

BOATBROKERS
TIDAL WAVE
one of Philip rhodes
early success stories, she
was built by the Minneford
Yacht Yard in 1930 as a
cruiser racer. she was
extremely successful racing
in the early 30s and there
are many articles about
her in the yachting press
of that era.
in 2000/2001 Tidal
Wave underwent a
substantial rebuild that
included new frames
and floor timbers, new
plank keel, planking,
stems, fastenings, deck,
new diesel and other
improvements.
$74,500 / Camden, Me
Photo Morris Rosenfeld & Sons
1976 HerresHoff rozinante 1929 eLCo Veedette 31
Professionally maintained and in has all the pedigree and
very good condition. Competitively promise of a first-class
priced, this would be an excellent restoration candidate.
coastal cruiser or daysailer. 28' Loa available for restoration -
$22,000 / rockport, Me call for details. $15,000
rockport, Me
Call Tom Kiley 207-701-1661
416 main STreeT roCKporT, me 04856
broKerage@arTiSanboaTworKS.Com
www.arTiSanboaTworKS.Com
ArtisAn BoAtworks
Be the Happily Ever After
of this Appalachian Fairy Tale!
THE HENDERSON
Wayne C. Henderson School of Appalachian Arts
MARION, VIRGINIA
The Wayne C. Henderson School of Appalachian Arts is a non-profit
501c3 organization dedicated to preserving traditional Appalachian Arts,
Crafts and Music. This Classic Wooden Runabout was custom built in
2006 and generously donated to our program. Were currently accepting
serious offers on this 25 beautifully custom built boat with trailer.
Please call Catherine Poole, Executive Director at 276-378-5028, email
cpoole@marionva.org or visit our website TheHenderson.org.
Contact us about your charitable donation today!
122 WoodenBoat 250
WB250Brokers.indd 122
45 Areys Lane
PO Box 222
508-255-0994 S. Orleans, MA 02662
info@areyspondboatyard.com www.areyspondboatyard.com
GRACIE ANNE 2015 22
APBY Custom Cruising Cat.
Built to highest standards of
wooden construction. In mint
condition with Yanmar 20 HP
inboard diesel and loaded with
options. Asking $195,000.
REVERIE 2014 George
Calkins 22 Bartender.
Famous for giving a smooth
ride in rough waters, powered
by a V-6 Mercruiser and,
under ideal conditions, will do
35 knots. Draft is 18. Asking
$100,000.
SUZI 1999 21 APBY
Pleasant Bay Launch. Great
boat for a leisurely boat ride,
fishing or a picnic outing.
Recently upgraded with nice
options. Yanmar diesel inboard
2GM20-93. Cruising speed 7
knots. Asking $18,000.
CUTTS & CASE
SHIPYARDSINCE 1927
A FULL SERVICE BOATYARD SINCE 1927
P.O. BOX 9, TOWN CREEK, OXFORD, MD 21654
www.cuttsandcase.com 410-226-5416 info@cuttsandcase.com
LD
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FOX
VIXEN
Ralph Wiley built,
strip-planked, cutter-rigged,
Tancook Whalers FOX and
VIXEN are available for sale.
INQUIRE
Cutts and Case Shipyard
DESIGNERS & BUILDERS OF FINE WOODEN YACHTS
3/22/16 2:47 PM
 METINIC

BOATBROKERS
A Member of
David Jones Yacht Brokerage
YACHT BROKERS Classic Wooden Boats
P.O. Box 898, Rockport, ME 04856
T: 207-236-7048 F: 207-230-0177 E: classics@midcoast.com
www.davidjonesclassics.com

CHARISMATIC
1921 Dark Harbor 17'
$9,875

WHIMBREL
1964 Concordia Yawl 41' #96
Bright Hulled Concordia in Excellent Condition.
Available for 3 year lease with option to buy. $129,000
BOSS ALMIGHTY
PROMISE 2001 Frank Day &
1971 Custom Al Benjamin River
Mason 34' Marine 24'
$44,000
Nicely Finished
Passage Maker
$24,000
SARAH HOLLOWAY 39' LOBSTER YACHT 2006
GLORY She is well constructed of quality materials by the highly
1963 Choey Lee regarded collaboration of Ralph & Richard Stanley of
Robb 35' HENRY DANA
1924 Classic Motor Southwest Harbor, Maine. She has been well
New Engine, Launch 25' built by Jake
Sails, Auto and Joe Dennett
maintained at Rockport Marine and gently used.
Pilot & Winches of Castine, ME The vessel is in as-new condition.
$24,900 $12,000
We give this vessel our highest recommendation.
Seal Cove Boatyard, Inc. 124 Horseshoe Cove Road, Harborside, ME 04642 One of the best weve seen. Current survey available.
www.sealcoveboatyard.com 207.326.4422 sealcoveboatyard@gmail.com

OFFERED FOR SALE:

1937 Herreshoff 12 1/2, DOVEKIE. Restored at Block
& Becket Shipwrights to excellent condition. Gaff-
rigged includes original builders plate, #1397. Cedar
planking, oak frames, mahogany transom, sheer and trim.
Restoration included new frames, bulkheads, coamings,
canvas-covered decks and more. Includes new Triad trailer.

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May/June 2016 123

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Raftings250-02.indd 134 3/22/16 7:25 PM

 CLASSIFIED
To place a Classified Ad: visit our website www.woodenboat.com; email classified@woodenboat.com;
or call our Classified Ad Manager at (207) 3594651.
Deadline for the July/August issue: May 5, 2016
MI A MI, FORT L AUDER DA L E ,
Florida Keys30+ years experience
building, repairing, and restoring
boats. Traditional and composite
construction. Nice people, quality
workmanship, and reasonable rates.
References. Call 305 634 4263,
3054981049, rmiller35@bellsouth.
net, www.millermarinesystems.com.
HADDEN BOAT CO.Wooden boat
construction and repair to any size;
sail and power. 11 Tibbetts Lane,
Georgetown, ME 04548, 2073712662,
www.haddenboat.com.
JOHN M. KARBOTT BOATBUILDING.
Custom wooden boat building and
repair. Lobsterboat styles a speciality.
WoodenBoat School instructor. Member
Massachusetts Marine Trades Associa-
tion. 789 Rocky Hill Rd, Plymouth, MA
02360. Phone/fax 5082243709, www.
by-the-sea.com/karbottboatbuilding. SAIL TRIM AGAIN WATCH HILL,
HUNTER BAY WOODWORKING CO.
Custom building, traditional and
modern construction to 45'. We are
seeking a buyer to participate in the
completion of this Lyle Hess 32' cutter.
Yellow cedar planking on balau fram-
ing with copper and bronze fastenings.
Lopez Island, WA. 3604682915,
steven@hunterbaywoodworking.com,
www hunterbaywoodworking.com.
WOODEN BOAT THE DORY SHOPCustom-built
RESTORATION small boats and Lunenburg dories
at the Riverport Wooden Boat School since 1917. Oars and paddles too.
Call 902 640 3005 or visit w w w.
Kingston, doryshop.com.
NY
845-338-0071 ext 20 WINDFALL WOODWORK S, V T.
www.riverportwoodenboatschool.org Traditional wooden boat construc-
tion and repair. Eighteen years
experience building boats, 12'-88';
LOW ELL BOATS COMPLETE
sail, row, and power. References
wooden boat restoration services and
available. 802434 3264 or www.
marine surveying. GARY LOWELL,
windfallwoodworks.com.
Greensboro, NC, 336 274 0892.
www.lowell.to/boats.
COMPASS PROJECT. BUY OR BUILD
a wooden boat and support Maine
youth! Sail and oar boats currently
under construction; many designs
available. www.compassproject.org,
2073916830.
WB250_Class-07.indd 135
CLASSIC YACHTING TROUSERS.
Custom makers of classic 70s-style
winter white f lannel, bone cream
gabardine, and 100% cotton canvas
tailored yachting trousers. Call or
e-mail: Grass Court Collection, Co.,
1-8022966634. www.grasscourt.
com, grassct@aol.com.
RI! Climb aboard one of Capt. Jack
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Encore 30' , 700-hp Mackenzie. Com-
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a tour in Capt. Jacks 1913 Model T
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NAVTECH MARINE SURVEYORS
CourseSurveying recreational/
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program. FL, 8002454425.
THE GROV E WOODWOR K ING
School. Teaching woodworking skills
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Gabriola Island, Canada. www.the
groveschool.ca.
School
SAIL MAINE ABOARD MAINES one- and Two-week courses in
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and six-day cruises with only 22 guests, For a complete catalog:
WoodenBoat School, P.o. Box 78,
MayOctober. Capt. Garth Wells, P.O. Brooklin, ME 04616, Tel: 2073594651
Box 992 W, Camden, ME 04843. 800 Online catalog at www.woodenboat.com
4694635. www.schoonerfrench.com.
May/June 2016 135
3/23/16 5:21 PM
 CLASSIFIEDS
June 24-26, 2016
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GRAY MARINE1959, 25' LYKINS
THE FINEST WOODEN POND
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0006. www.modelsailboat.com.
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REBUILT CHRIS-CRAFT 6-cylinder
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www.thedisappearedthefilm.com.
136 WoodenBoat 250
WB250_Class-07REV.indd 136
CATALOG OF 40 SIMPLE PLYWOOD
boats, $4. JIM MICHALAK, 118 E.
Randle, Lebanon, IL 62254. www.jims
boats.com.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
Plans from the National Watercraft
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available online. www.bartenderboats. ington, DC 20013-7012. www.american
com, 253 651 6561, boatinfo@ history.si.edu/csr/shipplan.htm.
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800.448.5567 U.S. for overseas orders). Payment:
8825504, www.gaboats.com.
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160 East M a i n S t r e e t , Searsport, ME 04974 bank. ATKIN BOAT PLANS, P.O.
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Free supplies catalog. Clark Craft, The magazine for those working in
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3/24/16 6:31 PM

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FRESHWATER HOMES FOR BOATS
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WB250_Class-07REV.indd 137
W W W.DA BBLER SA ILS.COM
Traditional small-craft sails. P.O.
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22579. Ph/fax 8045808723, dabbler
sails@gmail.com.
DOUGLAS FOWLER SAILMAKER
Highest-quality, full-seam curved
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dfowlersails@gmail.com.
Minimum 5 yards, prepaid only. chrome hardwarewindshield brack-
JASPER & BAILEY SAILMAKERS.
Established 1972. Offshore, one-
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andbailey.com.
H AV E TOOLS W IL L TR AV EL . clarkcraft.com.
Wooden boat builder will build,
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or in my shop. $25/hour. VT, 802 tools, Norwegian and English boat
3657823. Email lynne369@att.net. nails, roves/rivets, rose and flathead,
George Sperry Marine Surveys
George Sperry AMS
Specializing in Wooden Boats
Phone: (315) 654-2379 ABYC
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Cell: (518) 260-2715 ACBS
www.marinesurveyor.com/sperry/
Rope & Tar, 1 877965 1800 or
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American Rope & Tar, 1877965
1800 or tarsmell.com.
FINELY CRAFTED WOODEN SPARS;
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SILICON BRONZE FASTENERS
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T H O M S O N W O O D S PA R S
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Facebook too.
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Clark Craft, 716 8732640, www. other sizes and designs by custom
order. Custom design and fabrication
is our specialty. Also in stock, all sizes
U.S., state, foreign, historical, marine,
and decorative flags, banners, pennants,
and accessories. 77 Forest St., New
clench, threaded, decoration, and Bedford, MA 02740. 5089966006,
more. 50+ sizes and types, 38" to 6".
Your leading source since 1987. FAER-
www.brewerbanner.com.
ING DESIGN, Dept. W, P.O. Box 322,
East Middlebury, VT 05740, 800
5058692, faering@ripton-coop.net,
www.faeringdesigninc.com.
TARRED HEMP MARLINE. Several
styles; hanks, balls, spools. American
tarsmell.com.
May/June 2016 137
3/24/16 5:01 PM
 CLASSIFIEDS
CLASSICBOATCONNECTION.COM
Your one-stop source for all your
classic boat restoration needs. Call
507344 8024, or e-mail mail@
classicboatconnection.com for free
catalog.
T H E OR IGI NA L SI NC E 20 01.
The smallest composting toilet in
the world! EOS, P.O. Box 5, Mount
Vernon, OH 43050. www.airhead
toilet.com, 7403923642.
LeTONKINOIS. ALL-NATUR AL
varnish. Centuries-old formula. Long-
lasting, beautiful finish. Extremely
user-friendly. American Rope & Tar,
8779651800 or tarsmell.com.
HAVEN 12 1 2 complete high-quality
bronze hardware sets. See our display
ad elsewhere in the issue. For our
free catalog, contact us at J.M. Reineck
& Son, 7819253312, JMRandSon@
aol.com.
I grew to judge every purchase by how many bronze screws I could buy for the boat if I didnt spend on
this or made do without that. Lin Pardey, Bull Canyon: A Boatbuilder, a Writer and Other Wildlife
138 WoodenBoat 250
WB250_Class-07.indd 138
BRONZE CAM CLEAT with plastic
ball bearings and 11 2" fastening
center distance. BRONZE WING-TIP
NAVIGATION LIGHTS with glass
globe. Side mount, stern and steam-
ing. For our free catalog, contact us
at J.M. Reineck & Son, 7819253312,
JMRandSon@aol.com.
BANTAM AIR HAMMER
Boat Riveting Kit
Designed for
Copper Rivets
Cuts Riveting Time up to 70%
Superior Pneumatic
800-521-2282
www.superiorpneumatic.com
M AG N ET IC DR I L L BI T A N D
driver holder. Easily attaches to any
cordless drills battery pack. Only
$10.99 Made in USA. Visit our website:
www.drill-mate.us.
T H E B RO OK L I N I N N Ye a r -
round lodging, fine dining, Irish
Pub. Modern interpretations of clas-
sic Maine dishes. Always organic/
local. Winter Getaway: $155/DO,
dinner, breakfast, room, November
May. Summer rate: $125/DO (plus
dinner). brook lininn.com, ME,
2073592777.
HOMESTEAD MARINE PLYWOODS
AB Doug-fir, CCA treated fir, ribbon
sapele, teak & holly, teak, (BS1088 sapele,
okoume, hydro-tek meranti), SOLID
LUMBER ash, cypress, Doug-fir, teak,
(Philippine, sapele, genuine mahoganies),
AD & KD white oak, Spanish & red cedar,
OVER 60 SPECIES OF HARD- ipe, custom cut oak timbers & planks,
WOOD, softwood, and marine nationwide shipping, Vickery, OH, 419
plywood. Marine woodworking: 6845275, www.marine-plywood.us.
swim platforms, transoms, com-
panion ways, hatch covers, built-
ins. Custom milling and shaping, NEWPORT NAUTICAL TIMBERS
CNC work. Visit our website www.
parkervillewoodproducts.com or
call Parkerville Wood Products.
Connecticut, 8606499663.
WHITE OAK (QUERCUS ALBA),
up to 60' long x 42" wide. Longleaf
pine (Pinus pilustrus) out to 50' long.
Old-growth white pine, 22'28'. Black
locust, American elm, and larch. EXCEPTIONAL WOOD CUT FOR BUILDERS
New England Naval Timbers, CT,
8604803402, www.newengland Custom Cut Lumber
navaltimbers.com. Live Edge Slabs Large Inventory
Bristol, RI 401-253-8247
CEDAR STRIPS TO BUILD CANOES, NewportNauticalTimbers.com
kayaks, and rowboats. Northern white
cedar or western red cedar. All cove-
BL ACK LOCUST LUMBER and
and-bead, 14" or 3 16" thick. Top -
found curves. Cut to your specifica-
qu a l it y, c le a r, ver t ic a l g rWooden
a i n . Boat 1.625 x 2.indd 1 5/8/15
tions. Band-sawn. 4/4, 6/4, 8/4, and4:38 PM
Producing strips for 30 years, New-
bigger. ablacklocustconnection.com,
found Woodworks, Inc. Bristol, NH,
6037446872 or email michael@
4136240242.
newfound.com.
AT L A N T IC W H I T E C E DA R
Canoe strips, bead and cove, utility
BOULTER PLY WOOD Marine
plywood 4' x 8' to 16', 5' x 10' to 20'
fencing, clear siding, decking and
trim. Wide board teak. 2032451781,
1 8" to 1" okoume, sapele, meranti,
armsters@yahoo.com.
teak, ash, khaya, teak and holly, teak
and rubber. LumberSitka spruce,
PLANKING STOCK IN LENGTHS
teak, mahogany, green oak, ash,
to 32'angelique, silver-balli, wana,
cypress, fir, Spanish and red cedar,
angelique timbers. Call for quotes.
teak deck ing leng t hs up to
Gannon and Benjamin, 5086934658.
20'. Milling services. Nationwide
delivery. www.boulterplywood.com,
PORT ORFORD CEDARClear,
8884BOULTER.
seasoned pre-1967. Approx 555 bf:
17 boards 5/4; 19 boards 4/4. Widths
W W W.DI A MONDTE A K .COM
7.5" to 19", lengths 13' to 24'. $13 bf.
True teak wood. Planing, sanding
6037421985.
available. Quarter-sawn teak for deck-
ing; tongue-and-groove; veneer;
custom work. Also mahogany and
Spanish cedar. Highest quality. We
ship worldwide. 2154532196, info@
diamondteak.com.
TE A K , M A HOGA N Y, PA DAUK ,
purpleheart, white oak, teak decking,
starboard. Complete molding mill-
work facilities. Marine ply wood.
Custom swim platforms. SOUTH
J ER SE Y LUM BER M A NS INC .,
6268 Holly St., Mays Landing, NJ
08330. 6099651411. www.sjlumber
mans.com.
47' NORTHWEST SALMON SEINER.
$65,000. Built 1945, great boat, 318
cat power, systems good, needs new
owner to continue giving her the
good care she deserves. More specs
and details: peaseboatworks.com or
call Brad at 5082373210.
1969, 36' GRAND BANKS TRAWLER
Classic. Wooden hull. Restorable.
Twin Ford Lehman diesel engines,
120-hp. Make offers. 3042321333,
wvcoinc@aol.com.
3/23/16 5:21 PM

FISHERS ISLAND 23 RESTORED
by IYRS Boatbuilding & Restoration,
Class of 2015. She displaces 5050 lbs;
is 34' LOA; 23' LWL with a 7' beam
and draws 4'6". White oak frames
with tight seams of beautiful mahog-
any planking; canvas-covered cedar 1967 LYMAN CRUISETTE HARDTOP
deck. 4018485777, info@iyrs.edu, in excellent condition. Recently rebuilt
www.iyrs.edu/sale.
1967, 26' MACKENZIE CUTTYHUNK
Flush-Deck. Restoration 2010. Ford
engine; two Monel fuel tanks; new
pumps, shaft, skeg, Danforth anchor,
fathometer, VHS radio, compass.Two
mahogany pedestal fighting chairs;
two 20' fishing outriggers. Some TLC
needed. As is, $28,500 or best reason-
able offer. Wooden Tangent, 508
7589662, boatrott@comcast.net.
1940 GAR WOOD 20'6" UTILITY.
Professional restoration, multiple
Best In Show awards. Original
Chrysler Crown, 6 volt electrical sys-
tems. Correct leather interior. Solid
dual-xle trailer. Ready to enjoy or
show. $49,900. Rochester, NY. Serious
inquiries, scout@rochester.rr.com.
SC A L E R EPL IC A OF SHIPS
longboat, mahogany construction,
intended for sail rig. Dimensions 21'
6' beam. Custom built by Andy Endre-
sen. Asking $17,000. 9073621521.
WB250_Class-07.indd 139
CLASSIFIEDS
1947 CHRIS-CRAFT RUNABOUT, CANOEWILLITS BROS. #768
17', includes trailer and water-level and two 5'' paddles. Near-mint condition;
cover. Can be seen at www.woodboat. minor abrasions from being dragged
net, or call 8153859454. $25,900. over gravel. Always stored inside. $9,000.
Phoebe Markey, 7818626576.
M A R I A NNE IS A 1938 GA FF-
rigged Herreshoff 1212 . Converted
2011 PAUL 16' CAROLINA-STYLE from a marconi-rigged Fishers Island
cold-molded runabout. Sapel on model by the current owner. This
white oak. Prize-winner, $34,900. vessel underwent a major restoration
Details, 6163633017. and is now stored indoors ready for
her next steward. Recent survey avail-
able upon request. Ryan Miller, Lati- T R A DI T ION A L S C HO ON E R ,
tude Yacht Brokerage, 4018350069, Crockett design Nimble 30, Nova
www.latitudeyacht.com. Scotia built, VW diesel, much equip-
ment $35,000 Canadian, easy survey
access, i.rock@ns.sympatico.ca.
Chrysler 260-hp V8 (1,000 hours),
V-berth sleeps three, with restored
bright woodwork and new electrical
system. Comes with Furumo radar,
Garmin GPS, depthfinder, teak swim ROUND STERNED CORE SOUNDER; IAIN OUGHTRED SKERRIE SKIFF SKIFF,
platform, bow levelers, new fuel tanks. 32' long x 11' wide, 2.5' draft. Built 15', with new trailer. One season on
Asking $25,000 or best offer. Pictures 1988 by Harris Boatworks, Marshall- the water. Rowing version with dag-
on request. Truly a beautiful boat. burg, NC. Strip-planked juniper gerboard trunk and mast-step. I can
Call David Grogan, 9173013004. covered with 18 oz. fiberglass and add a full sail rig. Asking $3,100.
epoxy resin. Duael- station helm with bill@billthomaswoodworking.com.
flying bridge. 210 Cummins turbo-
charged diesel engine. V-berths sleep
two. Head and fresh water lavatory.
Air-conditioned forward cabin with
shore power. VHF radio, depth- finder,
and GPS navigation. Well maintained
and in excellent condition. Asking
price $23,000. Location Edisto Island,
SC. Contact Jim Potter, 8033601215,
1954/2016 PERFECTLY RESTORED e-mail jpott12089@aol.com.
and upgraded Bunker & Ellis 35' lob-
ster yacht. Grayling has all new elec-
tronic, electrical, plumbing, and 1953 CHRIS-CRAFT 17'' SPORTSMAN.
mechanical systems. New Yanmar Very good original condition. Refin-
6BY3-260-hp diesel. She has been ished 2014 -15. Great-running CC
beautifully refinished inside and out. 105-hp K engine. Heavy-duty Conti-
Among the very finest B&E yachts in nental double-axle trailer included.
existence. Expensive but far below Located on the New York State canal
reproduction value at $395,000 or best System. $10,000. Contact canaltimes@
offer. Visit Johanson Boatworks, www. gmail.com or 3158688891.
jboatworks.com for restoration story.
4014901442 or clarkemjr@cox.net.
I, DAYTON TRUBEE, AM SELLING
my beautiful Crocker cutter. Shes a
work of art! Completely restored, ready
to sail. Located Barnegat Bay, NJ. Trade
considered. 4108020980 anytime or
schoonernina@hotmail.com.
N.G.HERRESHOFFS BISCAY NE PR ET T I E S T BOAT I N T H E
Bay 14' daysailer, built 1990 by R. Harbor19'' Buzzards Bay gaff-rigged
Milner at Hudson Valley Boat. Length sloop. Pete Culler design built by The
14'5", beam 5', draft 1', 3' board down. 1958, 22' CHRIS-CRAFT RANGER. Landing School. Lapstrake Honduras
Approximately 1,000 lbs, 122 sq ft Hull is #33 of 170. All original. Kept mahogany over oak. Sitka-spruce
sail area. Located southwest ME. Call in fresh water for 20 years. Asking spars. Bronze fittings. Excellent con-
Tom at Artisan Boatworks Brokerage, $8,900. Call 7325521491 if inter- dition. 8-hp outboard, trailer, oars,
2077011661. ested. Located in Toms River, NJ. etc. $14,500. 6034317876.
May/June 2016 139
3/23/16 6:21 PM
 CLASSIFIEDS

1925 TIMBER POINT #9, 23' GREAT

South Bay, NY. Maintained diligently
at Southards. Class subject of Bodes
book. Time for this one to pass,
perhaps to another caring family.
$15,000. lethin@reservoir.com.
1960, 31' CROSBY A L BACOR E
Downeast cruiser built in Osterville,
MA. Perhaps the last of her kind!
Original Gray marine twin V-8, rebuilt.
Garmin radar/chartplotter. In same
family for 35 years and well main-
tained. $19,500.

1973, 23' RIVA SUPER ARISTON,

1979, 12'6" LOA BLACKHALL RIVER
Skiff by John D. Little, Washington,
ME. Classic 19th-century design,
copper-fastened cedar over oak
frames, mahogany trim. Galvanized
steel trailer, recent new lights, tires
and wheel bearings. $4,700. Contact
2032558058.
1954 CHRIS-CRAFT 18' SEA SKIFF,
launch today, but needs varnish.
Trailer, cover. $30,000 invested; first
$7,000. Boyds Boatyard, 860693
4811.www.boydsantiqueboats.com.
J. ALDENS 1939 MALABAR XII,
built exactly to original plans in 2008.
Berthed in Marmaris, Turkey. Bronze
fastened, bronze winches, and hardware.
USD $95,000. Contact cenkgurakan@
gmail.com.
Hull #994. Professionally maintained.
Needs cosmetic work. Low hours on OLSON 35 YAWL AEOLIA. HULL
replacement engine. $125,000. 508 #35. Mahogany on oak, teak deck.
7371280, fred.curran@flcrsi.com. One owner for past 30 years. Still
actively campaigned around Puget
Sound. Extensive sail inventory includ-
ing fore and mizzen staysails. Hull
cold-molded with 1 8" cedar. New
mast, cabin top. Completely rewired.
Chrisbuchsel@comcast.net, 425
1967 CHRIS-CRAFT 32' SEA SKIFF.
Triple axle trailer included. Flying 5626896.
bridge, 1,000-watt stereo, teak swim
platform, 350 C1 twin inboard engines FADE AWAY, 38' ON DECK, 10
(replacement), rebuilt transmission, tons. Low-hours BMW D-35, autopi-
full cover, full stand-up head, large lot, refrigeration and much more,
V-berth. Fresh water boat since new, including powered dinghy and his-
four owners, always stored indoors. torical documents. Largely rebuilt
Asking $39,000. Contact Carl, 262 over past 20 years, fir on oak. Ready
2752285. to return to racing, ocean sailing, or
coastal cruising. Lying Los Angeles,
$35,000. Contact Calvin Milam, 310-
804-4837, rcalvinmilam@aol.com. 1998 TR AWLER, BUILT BY THE
owner, 36', beam 14', draft 30". Sleeps
eight. John Deere diesel, 150-hp (700
hours), double ply wood hull 34",
2 gal/hour, 7 knots, excellent condi-
tion.$35,000. More information:
1964 OLD TOWN 16' RUNABOUT, i.nart@videotron.ca, Quebec, 418
trailer, cover, and 75-hp outboard 8315671.
motor (will sell separate). Asking $3,500.
Price negotiable. 2039963459.
1929, 24' CHRIS-CRAFT MODEL 3
Triple-Cockpit. Re-powered with a
Crusader 305. Well maintained. Orig-
inal engine included. $95,000. 508
7371280, fred.curran@flcrsi.com.
20' AMESBURY SKIFF. 1995 LOWELL
Boat Shop built, center console. Very
quiet, fuel-efficient Honda 50 four-
stroke with power lift. Easy one-
person on/off aluminum single-axle
trailer, 9' oars, completely equipped,
GRAND BANKS 1973, 32' SEDAN.
needs some refastening. $6,200.
Lake Saint Clair, MI. Needs substan-
southshorebuick@hotmail.com,
tial wood repair, paint and varnish,
7816902527.
requiring reasonable skills and your
sweat equity to make a great cruising
boat. Lehman diesel, generator, auto-
pilot, radar, chart plotter. Has been
in the water every year. Sacrifice
$16,500. Call Tony Peot, 9207466236.

PREVIOUS JUNE 2014 WOODENBOAT

cover story, after refit in 2012-13.
Discovered in September 2011 Wooden-
Boat Save a Classic. Designed and
built by Maine boat builder Chester
Clement in Southwest Harbor. Historic
significance. Professionally maintained.
$174,500. VT, Latitude Yacht Brokerage,
4018357215, tom@latitudeyacht.com.
1981, 23' STREBLOW, STRAIGHT
drive, 440 Chrysler, full cover, tandem
trailer. Second owner, low miles. Asking
$79,900. Contact Carl, 2622752285.
T H R U M C A P S PA R K M A N &
Stephens 1959, Pilot 35 sloop. Large
sail, electronic inventory, Volvo diesel 20 05, 37' PILOT HOUSE GA F F
engine. Large 3-axle trailer. $25,000, sloop. Yanmar diesel. Located Olym-
Canadian funds. 902 894 3457, pia, WA. $65,000. Call for details,
murmundle@gmail.com. 3602501386, 3609439431.

140 WoodenBoat 250

WB250_Class-07.indd 140 3/23/16 6:34 PM

 CLASSIFIEDS

C OL D - MOL DE D H U L L . BI L L ALDEN PRISCILLA FOR SALE

Gardens 12'6" Tom Cat design, built 30' sloop Odyssey, c.1972 by Irwin
at WoodenBoat School during the Jones. Mahogany over oak, with var-
2015 season. Constructed of three nished teak trim. Ready to sail condi-
layers of 18" Spanish cedar veneer, tion. 1997 Perkins 30 diesel, Raytheon
6oz cloth, and West System epoxy. radar/GPS, VHF, all onboard equip-
Comes with complete set of plans. ment and yard bills since 1989. Includes
See WB No. 176. $1,800. Contact rich@ Stimson Shed and Nutshell Pram.
woodenboat.com or 207-359-4651. Asking $14,000. Email andybangs@
Brooklin, ME. comcast.net for full description and
pics. Located seacoast NH.
CATSPAW DINGHY FOR SAIL AND
oar. Joel White design built by owner
in 2008. Traditional carvel-planked
cedar on oak frames. Sprit sail rig.
Trailer included. $7,500. Bel Air, MD.
mpj513@hotmail.com, 4439104410.

RALPH MONROE-DESIGNED 37'

gaff cat ketch. Strip-planked 114" mahog-
any, new tan-bark sails. 1987, 55-hp
Yanmar diesel. $15,000. Capt. Jim 410
9792628, jim@captjimshotwell.com. 30' TA NCOOK W H A LER, 2010, 1924 HERRESHOFF 12 1 2 . Major
designed by George Stadel. Wana on rebuild in 2012 including new sails
oak. Lying Woods Hole. $35,000. and mooring cover. $25,000. Contact
5085406604. brboater@gmail.com. Frank Duncan, 3392250839.

ZEPHYR WAS BUILT AT GANNON

& Benjamin in 2005. She is a custom-
designed centerboard sharpie set up
for comfortable sailing with small
groups of kids. Perfect boat for
family sailing in protected waters.
2015 WELSFORD GAFF-RIGGED A classic, one of a kind! $17,500.
sloop, 21' Penguin, motor and custom Contact John Rowse, 6175958557.
trailer. Featured in Small Boats Monthly, john@communityboatbuilding.org.
December 2015. $14,900. Ottawa, 17' SHEARWATER, JOEL WHITE
Canada. jabromaitis@gmail.com. design with additional freeboard and
built-in buoyancy. Beautiful boat,
exciting sailer. Okoume plywood
hull, Fowler sail, Shaw & Tenney oars,
Trailex trailer. All in like-new condition.
Located Central N Y. $4,000/best
26' NORWALK ISLAND SHARPIE. offer. 3157259592. jonathankirk@
Bruce Kirby design. Beam 7'11", Draft roadrunner.com.
12" board up. Fast, fun boat. Easily
single-handed. Built by professional
yacht rigger. Launched 1992. Bruyn-
zeel plywood, epoxy and glass. Fiber-
26' SEABIRD YAWL 1987Built and glass masts, aluminum booms. Fresh
maintained by Hadden Boat Co. paint and ready to go. $25,000 or
Yanmar diesel, new decks 2012. Fea- best offer. dajames@optonline.net. A T R U E C L A S S I C , N O T A
tured in WoodenBoats Small Boats reproduction, lapstrake rowing/
2012. Also see www.haddenboat.com. sailing dinghy. 11' long, 4' beam,
$35,000 negotiable. 2073712662. lateen sailing rig, pivoting centerboard
housed in a trunk with two stations
for rowing. Asking $2,900. Located
in Woodstock, VT. Contact Laurie
Lombard, 8024575121, sugarhillvt@
gmail.com.

33'6" AAGE NIELSEN YAWL, LUKE

2013 CALEDONIA YAWL, SEVEN-
strake, with galvanized trailer, 2.5-hp
Honda in well, Douglas Fowler sails.
Lightly used and stored indoors.
Enclosed fore and aft decks and side
tanks. 2038246062. Lying CT. Free
delivery within 200 miles. $16,000.
39' CONCORDIA YAWL, #48 LARA,
1957. Fully restored and upgraded
by Traditional Boat LLC, 2014/2015.
Clean survey. $195,000. 2073220157,
john@mainetraditionalboat.com.
built 1954. Varnished spars, new
rigging, new Beta engine, Raytheon
radar, GPS, new wiring, Dynel deck
JERICHO BAY LOBSTER SK IFF and house; large sail inventory includes
(WoodenBoat Nos.210, 211). Built 2011 roller-furling genoa. Located Penob-
by owner. Motor and trailer included. scot Bay, ME. Asking $45,000. Offers
$23,000 or offer. Seattle. dhlester@ considered. 6035692024, leighro@
gmail.com. myfairpoint.net.

May/June 2016 141

WB250_Class-07.indd 141 3/23/16 6:25 PM

 CLASSIFIEDS

1968 32' CUTTERMAHOGANY/

oak, lead keel, bronze screws/hard- FREE Classified
ware and Monel tanks. Teak deck, Writing guide
Dynel roof, oceanus sails, electronics/ Tips on writing a Boats for Sale ad,
GPS/chart plotter and engine all new and how to prepare for questions
in recent years. Boat is in good/great from potential buyers. For a copy,
condition and sailed in 2015 until call us at 2073594651 or email
November. Valued at $45,000 before classified@woodenboat.com.
HULL #C-25-194. SECOND OWNER new engine. Asking $37,000. Call/
since 1978. Dinette, galley, head. text 709-746-3644.
Inboard 350 repowered 2012. New
canvas, seats, cushions 2013. Very
good condition. Located in Mystic,
CT. Call Brian 8604908508.

MASON 30, 1955 MAHOGANY OVER

1933 GAFF CUTTER, TEAK ON OAK,
by Capt. O.M. Watts. Massive, well
sorted, owned 25 years. Picture gallery
on sandemanyachtcompany.co.uk,
page 10, Makora. 011441202330
007 and 0018188537101. $148,000.
15' CHESAPEAKE LIGHT CRAFT
sailing and rowing wooden boat built
from one of the best-known boat-
building kits in the world. Includes
spars, sail, oars, rudder and dagger-
board, galvanized trailer. Lightly
used and in excellent condition.
Asking $5,800. 603-772-3498. j24sail@
aol.com.
oak, bronze, in-water San Francisco
Bay. Needs some topside planks.
Newer engine, sails. Contact bill@
aaaboat@gmail.com.
21' CROSBY MALLARD SLOOP.
Built in 1951 by Nobel Prize winning
scientist, Ray Davis. Restored in 1985.
Needs some work. 8-hp Palmer; last run
1969, 26' SAKONNET/MACKENZIE in 2005. Includes trailer, mast, sails, etc.
Design. True bass boat, shallow water- 631-878-8847, edavismaple@gmail.com.
line, clinker topsides. Keel cutaway,
forward and aft controls. Reverse
laps on the bottom, 6-cylinder Isuzu
diesel. Full electronics, custom-built
1931 A LDEN YAW L, 57' LOD trailer. Ready for the water, must see!
Very fast classic yawl, diesel, radar, $19,900 or best offer. Amaxxinc
water heater, watermaker, gas stove, office@gmail.com.
refrigerator/freezer, 10' dinghy, roller-
furling jib, large sail inventory, new 21' GARTSIDE PLANK-ON-FRAME
paint/bright, sound hull. Owner sloop. Inboard diesel, Dynel decks,
will consider all reasonable offers. bronze fastened. Located Brooklin,
Located in Alameda, CA. 907488 ME. Launched 2011. $19,500. Call
8937, roachagucci@outlook.com. 2076649266.

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142 WoodenBoat 250

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 INDEX TO ADVERTISERS
ADHESIVES & COATINGS R&W Traditional
Boatlife Division Of Rigging & Outfitting - - - - - www.rwrope.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - 95
Life Industries - - - - - - - - - www.boatlife.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - 21 Red Hill Corp. - - - - - - - - - - www.supergrit.com - - - - - - - - - - - - 90
Epifanes North America - - - - - www.epifanes.com - - - - - - - - Cover IV Rekord Marine Enterprises, Ltd. - www.rekord-marine.com - - - - - - - - 107
Interlux - - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.yachtpaint.com - - - - - - Cover II-1 Shaw & Tenney - - - - - - - - - - www.shawandtenney.com - - - - - - - - 96
Marshalls Cove Marine Paint - - www.marshallscovemarinepaint.com - 128 Top Notch Fasteners, LLC - - - www.tnfasteners.com - - - - - - - - - - 113
System Three Resins, Inc. - - - - www.systemthree.com - - - - - - Cover III KITS & PLANS
Tri-Texco inc. - - - - - - - - - - - www.tritex.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 77
Arch Davis Design - - - - - - - - www.archdavisdesigns.com - - - - - - 130
West System Inc. - - - - - - - - - www.westsystem.com - - - - - - - - - - - 55
Bill Thomas Maker - - - - - - - - www.billthomaswoodworking.com - - 131
BOATBUILDERS Chesapeake Light Craft, LLC - - www.clcboats.com - - - - - - - - - 129, 132
Dudley Dix Yacht Design - - - - www.dixdesign.com - - - - - - - - - - 130
Artisan Boatworks - - - - - - - - www.artisanboatworks.com - - - - 57, 122
Francois Vivier Architecte Naval - www.vivierboats.com - - - - - - - - - - 132
Beetle, Inc. - - - - - - - - - - - - www.beetlecat.com - - - - - - - - - - - 127
Glen-L-Marine - - - - - - - - - - www.glen-l.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - 131
Billings Diesel - - - - - - - - - - www.billingsmarine.com - - - - - - - - 125
Hewes & Co. - - - - - - - - - - - www.cnc-marine-hewesco.com - - - - 130
Brackley Boats - - - - - - - - - - www.brackleyboats.com - - - - - - - - 127
Noahs - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.noahsmarine.com - - - - - - - - 130
Cayuga Wooden Boatworks - - - www.cwbw.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - 126
Nutshell Pram - - - - - - - - - - www.woodenboatstore.com - - - - - - 132
Crockers Boat Yard, Inc. - - - - www.crockersboatyard.com - - - - - - 124
Pygmy Boats Inc. - - - - - - - - - www.pygmyboats.com - - - - - - - - - 131
Edgecomb Boat Works - - - - - - www.edgecombboatworks.net - - - - - 128
Tippecanoe Boats, Ltd. - - - - - www.modelsailboat.com - - - - - - - - 131
Fish Brothers Marine Service - - www.fishcustomboats.com - - - - - - - 120
Waters Dancing - - - - - - - - - www.watersdancing.com - - - - - - - - 130
Gannon & Benjamin - - - - - - - www.gannonandbenjamin.com - - - - 127
Haven Boatworks, LLC - - - - - www.havenboatworks.com - - - - - - - 126 LUMBER
Hilmark Boats Inc. - - - - - - - - www.hilmarkboats.com - - - - - - - - 126
Downes & Reader Hardwoods - www.downesandreader.com - - - - - - - 78
Laughing Loon - - - - - - - - - - www.laughingloon.com - - - - - - - - 124
St. Angelo Hardwoods, Inc. - - - www.stangelohardwoods.com - - - - - - 97
McMillen Yachts, Inc. - - - - - - www.woodenyachts.com - - - - - - - - 125
Vendia Woods - - - - - - - - - - www.vendia.fi - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 90
MP&G, LLC - - - - - - - - - - - www.mpgboats.com - - - - - - - - - - 126
Parker Marine Enterprises - - - www.parker-marine.com - - - - - - - - 126 MUSEUMS
Pendleton Yacht Yard - - - - - - www.pendletonyachtyard.com - - - - - 126 Maine Maritime Museum - - - - www.mainemaritimemuseum.org - - - - 91
Reuben Smiths Mystic Seaport Museum - - - - - www.mysticseaport.org - - - - - - - - - - 19
Tumblehome Boats - - - - - - www.tumblehomeboats.com - - - - - - 125 Roanoke Island Maritime
Rockport Marine - - - - - - - - - www.rockportmarine.com - - - - - - - - 91 Museum - - - - - - - - - - - - www.townofmanteo.com/marine - - - - 18
Seal Cove Boatyard - - - - - - - - www.sealcoveboatyard.com - - - - - - 124
Stonington Boat Works, LLC - - www.stoningtonboatworks.com - - - - 124 PRINTS & PUBLICATIONS
Traditional Boat, LLC - - - - - - www.mainetraditionalboat.com - - - - 126 Anne T. Converse Photography - www.annetconverse.com - - - - - - - - 106
Wooden Boatworks - - - - - - - www.woodenboatworks.com - - - - - 127 Professional BoatBuilder
Woodwind Yachts - - - - - - - - - www.woodwindyachts.com - - - - - - - 127 Subscription - - - - - - - - - www.proboat.com - - - - - - - - - - - 128
YNOT Yachts - - - - - - - - - - - www.ynotyachts.com - - - - - - - - - - 120 Small Boats Annual - - - - - - - - www.woodenboatstore.com - - - - - - 115
Small Boats Monthly - - - - - - - - www.smallboatsmonthly.com - - - - - - 45
BROKERS WoodenBoat Back Issues - - - - - www.woodenboatstore.com - - - - - - - 94
Areys Pond Boatyard - - - - - - www.areyspondboatyard.com - - - - - 122 WoodenBoat E-Newsletter - - - - - www.woodenboat.com - - - - - - - - - 108
Bachli International Boat Sales - www.boat-trade.com - - - - - - - - - - 106 WoodenBoat Subscription - - - - www.woodenboat.com - - - - - - - - - - 32
Block and Becket - - - - - - - - - www.blockandbecket.com - - - - - - - 123
Brooklin Boat Yard - - - - - - - - www.brooklinboatyard.com - - - - - - 121 SAILS
Concordia Yacht Sales - - - - - - www.concordiaboats.com - - - - - - - 121 Doyle Sailmakers, Inc. - - - - - - www.doylesails.com - - - - - - - - - - - 112
Cutts & Case - - - - - - - - - - - www.cuttsandcase.com - - - - - - - - - 122 E.S. Bohndell & Co. - - - - - - - www.bohndell-sails.com - - - - - - - - 106
David Jones Yacht Broker - - - - www.davidjonesclassics.com - - - - - - 123 Gambell & Hunter - - - - - - - - www.gambellandhunter.net - - - - - - 114
Denison Yacht Sales - - - - - - - www.denisonyachtsales.com - - - - - - 121 Nathaniel S. Wilson, Sailmaker - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 96
Devlin Designs - - - - - - - - - - www.devlinboat.com - - - - - - - - - - 132 Sperry Sails, Inc. - - - - - - - - - www.sperrysails.com - - - - - - - - - - - 54
The Henderson School - - - - - www.thehenderson.org - - - - - - - - 122
Metinic Yacht Brokers - - - - - - www.sealcoveboatyard.com - - - - - - 123 SCHOOLS & ASSOCIATIONS
Antique & Classic Boat Society - www.acbs.org - - - - - - - - - - - 114, 120
EVENTS The Apprenticeshop - - - - - - - www.apprenticeshop.org - - - - - - - - - 76
Antique & Classic Boat Festival - www.boatfestival.org - - - - - - - - - - - 95 Cape Fear Community College - www.cfcc.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 107
International Maritime Great Lakes Boat Building
Film Festival - - - - - - - - - - www.maritimefilmfestival.com - - - - - - 45 School - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.glbbs.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 79
North Carolina International Yacht
Maritime Museums - - - - - - www.ncmaritimemuseums.com - - - - - 56 Restoration School - - - - - - www.iyrs.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 21
Panerai Classic The Landing School - - - - - - - www.landingschool.edu - - - - - - - - - 97
Yachts Challenge - - - - - - - www.paneraiclassicyachtschallenge.com - 7 Westlawn Institute of
Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland Marine Technology - - - - - - www.westlawn.edu - - - - - - - - - - - - 94
and Labrador - - - - - - - - - www.trinityseduction.ca - - - - - - - - 109 WoodenBoat School - - - - - - - www.woodenboat.com - - - - - - - - 22-23
Wooden Boat Festival/Northwest
Maritime Center - - - - - - - www.woodenboat.org - - - - - - - - - - 16 MISCELLANEOUS
WoodenBoat Show - - - - - - - - www.thewoodenboatshow.com - - - - - 43 American Cruise Lines - - - - - www.americancruiselines.com - - - - - - 5
Beta Marine US Ltd. - - - - - - - www.betamarinenc.com - - - - - - - - 108
HARDWARE & ACCESSORIES Half-Hull Classics - - - - - - - - www.halfhull.com - - - - - - - - - - - - 78
Airlette Manufacturing - - - - - www.airlette.com - - - - - - - - - - - - 108 Northwest Navigation - - - - - - www.northwestnavigation.com - - - - 113
Barkley Sound Oar & Pearl Seas Cruises - - - - - - - - www.pearlseascruises.com - - - - - - - - 9
Paddle Ltd. - - - - - - - - - - www.barkleysoundoar.com - - - - - - 113 U.S. Bells - - - - - - - - - - - - - www.usbells.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - 96
Hamilton Marine - - - - - - - - - www.hamiltonmarine.com - - - - - - - - 39 WoodenBoat Facebook - - - - - www.facebook.com/woodenboatpub - 128
J.M. Reineck & Son - - - - - - - www.bronzeblocks.com - - - - - - - - 108 WoodenBoat Store - - - - - - - www.woodenboatstore.com - - - - - 10-13
Minneys Yacht Surplus - - - - - www.minneysyachtsurplus.com - - - - - 76 WoodenBoat.com - - - - - - - - www.woodenboat.com - - - - - - - - - 114

May/June 2016 143

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 by Maynard Bray

HEL-PORT II
A Fellows & Stewart As you can see
from these photos,
HEL-PORT II has

Sportfisherman Cruiser been carefully

looked after by her
current owner.

W hat a lovely boat this is! She

is narrow, with a raking stem
and transom, a pointed trunk cabin
topped with a skylight, and a low,
sweeping sheer. You can see that
designer Nick Potter had sailboats on
his mind when he drew the plans for
HEL-PORT II. Hed just designed the
46' LOA Cal-32s for the same builder,
and soon went on to create the lovely
double-ended sloops YUCCA and TAN-
TALUS and the 62-footer SERENADE
for violinist Jascha Heifetz.
HEL-PORT IIs name, apparently
coming from Helen and Porter,
has stayed with her through a succes-
sion of Southern California owners.
The first was Shell Oil executive William P. Durkee, who stations when built, one in the deckhouse and another
specified that seakindliness and comfort be prioritized in the cockpit, but the latter was removed by the
over speed. He used her for deep- current owner to make more space.
sea fishing, and in at least one con- Particulars HEL-PORT IIs current owner since
temporary write-up she was called a LOA 40' 1989, during a four-and-a-half-year
sportfisherman instead of a power LWL 37' refit ashore, replaced nearly half of
cruiser. Beam 9'6" her underbody and completely refas-
Shes as unusual below deck as Draft 2'6" tened it with bronze. She also received
she is above. The layout is open and Power Two 85-hp Kermath a new transom, her steam-bent frames
Sea-Flyer gas engines
symmetrical like a sailboat. Four were sistered as needed, the deck was
Doc. No. 280751
could sleep in her forward cabin in Designed by Nicholas S. Potter
refastened, and both cabintops were
paired uppers and lowers before the Built by Fellows & Stewart, Inc.,
resheathed with fiberglass and epoxy.
two swing-up berths were removed. Wilmington, California, 1937 Fuel and water tanks are new and so is
Unusual for boats of this type, her the wiring. Some of her laid-teak fore-
galley is forward, and the enclosed deck needs to be replacedall of the
head is located up in the bow under the point of the deck could stand it for a first-class joband the toerails
trunk cabin. She has two more berths in the deckhouse, call for attention. Then theres the paint and varnish,
along with the steering station. She had two steering which is a cosmetic upgrade.
Amazingly, and important for the purist, her origi-
nal gasoline engines are still with her, overhauled at
the time of acquistion.

If youre a sailor or ex-sailor, or just appreciate powerboats with sail-

boat roots, HEL-PORT II might attract you to the other side. Shes
afloat at Marina Del Rey; to inspect her or learn more, contact owner
Gerard Buck, 17471 Raymer St., Northridge, CA 91325; 818701
0782; gbinmdr@msn.com.
GERARD BUCK (ALL)

Maynard Bray is WoodenBoats technical editor.

Send candidates for Save a Classic to Maynard Bray, WoodenBoat,

P.O. Box 78, Brooklin, ME 04616.

144 WoodenBoat 250

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SystemThree-250.indd 3 3/22/16 7:47 PM
 Boatyard Or Backyard

Rolling and Tipping with Epifanes Delivers Exceptional Results.

Professional or amateur, once youve rolled and tipped a boat with Epifanes two-part
Poly-urethane, it can quickly become your go-to strategy for every paint job. The
results are absolutely stunning, and the guidance and technical support from Epifanes
are unsurpassed. Of course spraying is still a great option for all Epifanes paints and
varnishes. But once youve experienced the roller and the brush, the more youll be
rolling and tipping with Epifanes. Look for it at your local chandlery. And watch our
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AALSMEER, HOLLAND n THOMASTON, MAINE n ABERDEEN, HONG KONG
1-800-269-0961 n www.epifanes.com
FOLLOW US

A special thank-you to the owners of Moonmaiden II. Beautiful paint job.

Epifanes-245.indd 4 3/22/16 7:38 PM